


The Love Thieves

by CaptainSlow



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, I hope there's humour in it too but the jury's still on that, M/M, and some fluff aye, lots of misery, they aren't being good old-fashioned loverboys except in the end they are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-11-07 19:28:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 85,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20822591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainSlow/pseuds/CaptainSlow
Summary: Oh the tears that you weepFor the poor tortured soulsWho fall at your feetWith their love begging bowls. (c)Depeche ModeThis, Crowley reckoned dully, was really starting to look like some very badly made noir film. Buckets of Holy water. Bloodied daggers all around. Crowley's mind refused to comprehend what the fuck was going on. He wished to pinch himself, pinch Aziraphale too, and wake the hell up, probably nursing a bastard of a hangover and bathing in cold sweat, but in his own bed – or on the sofa in the backroom of the angel's blasted bookshop – remembering all of what was happening here and now as a mere nightmare.





	1. Chapter 1

_Love needs its martyrs_  
_Needs its sacrifices_  
_They live for your beauty_  
_And pay for their vices_

_Love will be the death of_  
_My lonely soul brothers_  
_But their spirit shall live on in_  
_The hearts of all lovers. ©_

*****

Watch.

There's a narrow back alley in the very heart of London, its cobblestoned pavement glistening wetly in the yellowish glow of the old-fashioned sodium street lamps. Weren't it for the several neon signs here and there, it wouldn't really be possible to tell if it's 2013 or perhaps all the way back to the 1920s. There are shallow puddles along the sidewalks, reflecting the electric lights and the overcast maze of the sky, a faint sound of water is heard as it runs in the gutters below the ground. One of the many summer rains has just stopped, and the damp air still bears its lingering freshness. It smells of wet pavement, somehow, inexplicably, of dust that was washed away, and – just a little – of the rotting sea weed from the Thames. It's the middle of July. It's coming on midnight, and, weren't it for the clouds, there'd be the almost full moon hanging just above the roof tops, looking down on the city with its eternal, frozen scowl plastered to its pallid martyr's face.

A small ruffled sparrow hops and flutters from aerial to aerial, from one ledge to another, occasionally stopping to preen his feathers and then to hurry onwards.

Below him, two men – or, rather, very convincingly man-shaped beings – are walking down the street. One is slightly taller and lankier, dressed into a slick black summer raincoat and a black suit, which is, doubtlessly, offensively expensive. His tie is loosened and a couple of top buttons on his immaculate silk black shirt are undone. The shoes he's wearing are made of snakeskin. His cheekbones are sharp, just like they'd always been for the previous six millennia – they're a part of his True Form, after all. The sunglasses he can rarely be seen without on a daily basis are presently pushed up into his hair, revealing his striking, amber-coloured, utterly inhuman eyes. This is the demon Crowley, creator of the Original Sin, Hell's very own representative on Earth, one who was to ensure that the Apocalypse ensued according to plan yet who helped to prevent it, and the only demon in God's vast world who has the first-hand experience of what love is.

His associate is wearing a pair of light sand-coloured trousers, a white shirt and the notorious tartan vest on top of it, because some things just never change. His hair is a shock of fair curls, and the light of the streetlamps turns them into nothing short of a halo. Behind his thin-rimmed, old-fashioned glasses he doesn't really need to wear, his eyes are just slightly unfocused but every bit as freezing blue as they've ever been. They are a part of his True Form, too, after all. He cannot be called exactly slim, although if a certain Madam Tracy could see him right now, she'd be pleasantly surprised at the obvious change in this gentleman's shape. The said gentleman would be pleasantly surprised that she noticed – after all, he's been trying quite hard to put himself into a bit of an order lately even though it's proved rather challenging to do so. He's had to cut on the amount of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows, but the Ritz desserts still remain a guilty pleasure, absolutely beyond his ability to quit. This is the angel Aziraphale, the former Principality infamous for granting his flaming sword to Adam and Eve, Heaven's very own representative on Earth, lover of sushi and intricate snuffboxes, and not the most virtuous of angels in the Heavenly host.

Both beings are in that wonderful state of sloshed precisely to the point when it makes the world around seem fairly bearable to deal with, perhaps even peculiar, so they stumble and stagger along, giggling and grabbing each other's arm or shoulder for support. The sparrow can't quite follow what exactly those two are discussing – if push came to shove, the gentlemen in question probably wouldn't be able to explain it either – but the most frequent words in their conversation are, not surprisingly, 'dolphins', 'bugger' and 'ineffable'. They're walking very close to each other, their hands nearly touching. From the look of it, the sparrow assumes, both are rather enjoying their little shenanigans, and thus keep doing them on purpose.

Meanwhile, on the street that runs at a straight angle to the one the two drunken agents of Hell and Heaven are walking along, there's another figure, although of a thoroughly mortal persuasion, as the sparrow can observe from his height. The figure is obscure and nondescript, and it's carrying something in one of its hands, something which looks cylindrical and, judging from how its shoulders are slanted to one side, quite heavy.

At the pace they are walking, both parties are destined to meet right at the corner where the two streets cross, in approximately ten seconds' time.

*****

It was all happening so fast that even Crowley, who was – rightfully so – taking pride in being called a flash bastard, was finding it hard to follow – let alone understand – what on this bloody Earth was going on. At one moment, Aziraphale and he were taking a very drunken but very pleasant late-night stroll towards the bookshop, and, at the other, he was all of a sudden being shoved rather unceremoniously and pushed to the ground by the angel himself, in a whirl of tartan, feathers and divine blond curls. Less than a heartbeat later, Crowley's cheek connected with the pavement, too hard, too wet and decidedly way too cobblestoned for his liking, the dirt and sand scraping painfully against his cheekbone. With his head too light and too heavy at the same time, sprawled on the sidewalk beneath what felt like a great sandbag with feathers and hardly able to comprehend anything, Crowley tried to sober up. It seemed like the best thing which could be done in the present confusing circumstances.

Aziraphale cursed – actually _cursed_, something involving a very expressive _buggersomething_ – right above his ear, taking Crowley into an even stronger grip, a grip so tight the demon could hardly draw in a breath. He opened his mouth to ask the angel what the blessed fuck he thought he was doing, or at least ask him to stop squeezing him so damn tight, but whatever words were on the verge of slipping off his tongue were subsequently drowned by his own hiss of pain as droplets of lukewarm liquid landed onto the back of his hand. It stung, suddenly and fiercely, making Crowley jerk in an attempt to pull his limb away from whatever harm had come to it. For all he could tell, it felt like it was burning holes right through his skin.

Burning. Holes. Burning holes…

His jumbled deductions sobered him some more, and the implications of what it must be sobered him completely. Holy water was apparently being spilt somewhere in the world which didn't consist solely of Aziraphale's feathers, Aziraphale's tartan vest and the cold pavement; and Holy water meant…

_Oh_ _shit_!

Crowley struggled to get out, to scramble himself from under Aziraphale's prostrated body – Holy water or no Holy water, he had no business being pinned to the ground by somewhat less stuffy than they used to be angels dressed in ugly tartan. That was the question of dignity. Whatever it was out there that had apparently attacked them, they were going to have to deal with him, personally. Crowley didn't particularly wish to deal with anything involving Holy water, of course, but it felt like he didn't have much choice in the matter.

A heartbeat later he didn't have to struggle anymore, though – Aziraphale's weight was suddenly gone, and then there came a muffled yelp and everything was still once again. Panting, Crowley whirled around on his hands and knees, ready to jump to his feet, or maybe recoil and run, or maybe even fight, protecting… whom? Himself? The angel? Both of them? He couldn't quite get in charge of his racing thoughts yet. But a hiss he was about to let out, so natural he wasn't even aware of it, suddenly got stuck in his throat, and Crowley, with his eyes wide open, slowly lowered himself down on his heels.

There was no need for a fight, not anymore anyway. There must have been, though, judging by the nasty burns on the back of his hand and a medium-sized tin bucket lying indifferently nearby. Crowley was actually looking at Aziraphale who was just a couple of feet away from him but all he could see, oddly enough, was that blasted bucket. It was dinted on one side, apparently from the impact of the fall it had taken.

It was strange how his perception suddenly shrank and refused to register the obvious, dodging away and focusing on some insignificant little details instead. Humans tended to do it, didn't they, what with their psychological coping and self-defence mechanisms? Humanity must have been rubbing off on him, he thought a bit distractedly, eyes wandering around as if they were hell bent on avoiding what was right in front of them.

For whatever reason, he was very well aware of the moon looking down on them with its sufferer's face, torn greyish clouds racing past its silvery disc. Trickles of Holy water were finding their way to the gutter between the cobble stones, and Crowley felt an intrinsic urge to try and scuttle out of their way. He remained where he was, though. In the current circumstances, Holy water didn't seem all that menacing. What did was the bright, rich red that was seeping into its little streams. He traced one of the trickles with his gaze until the point when it wasn't a trickle any more but a big – and growing bigger still – puddle of blood, glimpses from the street lamps and the moon reflecting in its rusty surface. Suddenly, Crowley was painfully aware of the lack of his sunglasses. They were lying somewhere behind him, shattered. He had no idea why he thought of them in the first place when it was more likely than not that he would take them off right now anyway. Maybe it was because he'd grown so accustomed to them that he wasn't quite able to believe that what he was seeing right in front of him with his own eyes was real. His very nature seemed to fiercely resist believing it was so.

Close enough to touch, sprawled on his back, his arms and legs prostrate, there was a man. Crowley was sure that a man was really all he was – or rather had been – solely because none of the man-shaped beings, neither from the Up- nor from the Downstairs, looked so profoundly sad and unsightly in death; and this particular chap was nothing if not dead. That, however, wasn't exactly what refused to settle in Crowley's head. People died all over the place, it was nothing to be surprised about. Having spent six millennia alongside them, one started to get accustomed to the phenomenon.

What was so awfully different this time was Aziraphale. Aziraphale, kneeling beside the dead man. Aziraphale, in his ridiculous tartan vest, his shirt sleeves now sprinkled with red droplets. Aziraphale, clutching a… Crowley's mind faltered for a moment, refusing to register it for what it was. Aziraphale was holding a knife, his carefully manicured hands smeared with blood. Aziraphale, whose face was as pale as that of the moon above London that night, and just as agonised. Aziraphale, whose eyes were wide open, glazed and distant, and even in this false light Crowley could tell they weren't of celestial blue any more.

No, of course, they weren't. He couldn't see what colour they were now, but it certainly wasn't anything celestial. The eyes that were looking upon their owner's victim simply couldn't be.

_How the-- What-- How_ could it all happen so bloody fast?

Thoughts whirled inside Crowley's head in snatches and snippets, torn out of context and mostly unrelated, as he kept kneeling there on the cold wet pavement, unable to tear his eyes away from the blood swathing those soft, neat hands. There was pain written across Aziraphale's face, and Crowley knew immediately just what sort of pain it was. Some part of him still remembered it perfectly well, one of his nightmares that had been relentlessly haunting him for six millennia, hardly letting its grip loosen. The pain, which, once experienced, stayed forever, lurking somewhere right beneath the surface of consciousness.

Crowley shuddered. For a while, all he was able to do was sit where he was, barely feeling the hard stones against his knees, which would later leave bruises he'd be way too preoccupied to miracle off, and stare, mutely, at… at…

His sanity seemed to titter on the very edge of plunging into all-encompassing panic because it wasn't quite prepared to deal with what had just happened and call Aziraphale for what he had become. It was Aziraphale, for someone's sake, his very own angel! This, by all means, ought to be a nightmare. He should pinch himself now and wake up screaming bloody murder because, surely, Aziraphale and murder were really as far from each other as--

But here he was, nonetheless, his angel – a _Fallen_ one, something whispered in Crowley's mind with dreadful clarity – with a bloody knife in his bloody hands and with his eyes… his eyes…

Then Crowley blinked, and the encroaching insanity retreated back into the depth of his mind. The surroundings, and the angel along with them, on the contrary, seemed to have come into focus.

"Aziraphale…" Crowley called, his voice sounding hoarse and horribly distant as if there was someone else speaking from somewhere afar, not him.

Aziraphale didn't seem to hear, but the dagger – for now Crowley could detect it wasn't a mere knife, it was something more elaborately crafted – fell out of his hand and clanked softly against the pavement. Crowley winced. He could smell the blood now, and it was making his corporeal body sick. The sound of saliva slipping down his throat as he swallowed was almost too loud in the stillness of the night surrounding them.

"Angel?" he said again, still sounding treacherously shaken.

Again, Aziraphale didn't respond, and didn't move, and didn't even seem to be aware of Crowley's presence. His gaze was glued to the body in front of him, and at that moment the demon could swear that in all his six millennia of existence, never had he seen anything more frightening than this emptiness in his angel's eyes. Crowley's mind was probably agile enough to cope with the fact that Aziraphale might have Fallen, but the mere concept of his only true friend possibly going insane… the prospects seemed like a dark, bottomless void filled with such unimaginable terrors that an unintended, strangled whimper left Crowley's mouth without his knowing it.

Fuck, this couldn't be happening. This shouldn't be happening.

"Angel, look at me," Crowley tried again, his hands clutching on his knees spasmodically. "Aziraphale, please?"

"I had to, Crowley," Aziraphale whispered, his eyes darting up momentarily.

_Oh G--, bloody Someone, so much pain_, Crowley thought desperately, _so much_.

"He would've killed you."

Another look, a longer one this time, allowing Crowley to distinguish the glimpse of the colour which you'd probably get by sucking all the liveliness and joy out of the celestial blue. It wasn't quite grey, more like a listless, faded kind of blue.

"I couldn't let him--"

Aziraphale's voice broke in a shuddering, strangled sob as he wrung his normally so neat, and now so blood-stained, hands helplessly, and as if having been given a wake-up kick, Crowley darted forward. He moved lightning fast, not like a snake wearing a human corporation but like a deadly Serpent he'd once been. In less than a blink of an eye, he was beside his angel, arms cradling his rigid frame as it shook with silent tears, and hatefully unable to come up with anything to say. No words of consolation, no trivial _it's okay's_ and _it'll be all right's_, no blasted anything – his mind was numb and blank, just one single snatch of a thought as if stuck on rewind – Aziraphale has Fallen, his angel has Fallen, Fallen, FallenFallenfallen.

Crowley held him closer still, closer than he'd ever been, his nose buried into the unspeakably soft, unruly, curls. He could feel Aziraphale's hands clutching at one of his arms so tightly it hurt, and for the first time in his demonic existence, Crowley wished – really wished – that he was able to take pain away as easily as he could inflict it. But that had always been Aziraphale's business, hadn't it? Whenever someone had been in dire need of pain being alleviated – Crowley himself included – the angel had been there with a kind word or a gentle touch or that unobtrusive way of advising he had, always able to somehow bring the so much needed deliverance. And now, when Aziraphale needed it most of all, Crowley didn't seem to be worth a single damn.

So all he did was stay beside Aziraphale and rock him slowly back and forth, his heart pounding, acutely aware of his inability to come up with anything at all, let alone anything adequate. Worse still, he could feel – could literally _taste_ – Aziraphale's pain, now coursing through him, too, stupefying in its intensity, swirling and churning somewhere deep within himself, and if that was what he was feeling, he recoiled at the thought of what Aziraphale must be going through. Besides that, there was another feeling, the feeling of something having been irrevocably changed. Crowley contemplated it dully, chasing after the snatches of thoughts in his own head.

Something, huh? Everything was blasted wrong! The tin bucket, the trickles of Holy water, the dead man lying merely inches away from them, the bloody dagger and Aziraphale's bloody hands, every single one of those things was wrong! And then it finally struck Crowley, the understanding. It struck him with the force of a freight train, making his next breath die down in the middle of his throat. There was a feeling about Aziraphale… or rather, there wasn't a feeling anymore. That was the thing which felt so atrociously different. For as long as Crowley could remember, Aziraphale had always had that soft, soothing, ethereal radiance about him, and now it was gone, just like that, in an instant.

Once upon a time, Crowley had found that radiance equally annoying and appealing. In the beginning, he'd suspected he was allergic to it, which was perfectly understandable given the fact that he was a demon, yet he was helplessly drawn to it as well. The two of them had fought, they'd argued, they'd discorporated each other, but the appeal had remained throughout the years, throughout the centuries, throughout the millennia, in the end giving him a rather worrying idea of him possibly being some kind of a very sick demon. He hadn't been sure that demons could be masochistic by nature, but at the time he hadn't been able to come up with a better explanation. Later he'd changed his mind and settled for the opinion of being one rather lucky bastard of a demon, after all.

And now there was nothing. Crowley had so much got used to feeling that holy aftertaste whenever Aziraphale was around it was no surprise he'd had a hard time figuring out what exactly seemed so amiss. Now that he had, he dearly wished he could un-figure it back. Existing in the world which was devoid of that holy, soothing presence was like--

But Crowley strictly forbade himself to go into further assumptions. Aziraphale was still here, that was what really mattered. Hell, _he_ was here solely because of Aziraphale. If it hadn't been for the angel, all that would have remained of him would be a smouldering pile of ashes in a puddle of Holy water, and this time there would be no Antichrist to tweak the reality back to normal. Despite himself, Crowley shuddered again. They needed to get out of here, the faster the better. He didn't quite know how the procedure of dealing with the newly converted demons went these post-Apocalyptic days, but he was positive that meeting with the likes of the Dukes of Hell was the last thing they needed right now.

Aziraphale's stifled sobs had tapered off a while ago, and now he was leaning heavily against Crowley, his hands not a vice grip but a feeble touch on his forearm.

"Come," the demon muttered and got back to his feet, beckoning the angel – and he suspected no matter what, Aziraphale would always remain his _angel_ – to do the same.

Aziraphale didn't move. Aziraphale continued to sit where he was, his head bent and shoulders slanted. With a soft sigh, Crowley hooked his arms under the angel's armpits, gently hoisting him up to a standing position. The action was somewhat familiar – there had been quite a number of such occasions in their lifetime when one of them had refused to sober up and the other had had to pull him back to his feet – and this familiarity seemed to boost the demon's confidence a little. This was a ridiculous thought, but ridiculous as it was, it was also sobering. If nothing else, both of them were if not completely safe but at least seemingly sound, even if only for the time being. 

"Let's get you out of here, you silly stuffy angel, yeah?" he murmured into the cloud of curls which smelled remotely of tea and spices and sunshine, resorting to the last trick he could think of. Calling Aziraphale a _'silly stuffy angel'_ had always managed to trigger some kind of response from the latter, a rather testy one more often than not. Besides, speaking as if nothing disastrous had happened gave Crowley just a little more sense of control over what was going on. "Let's just get back home and sort you out."

"But he really would've done it, Crowley, he…" Aziraphale's voice broke again and Crowley instinctively pulled him closer, wanting so dearly to soothe, but not knowing how. 

He threw one last glance at the body on the pavement and, suddenly, the fine hairs on the nape of his neck came alive and stood on end. Speaking of killing, Aziraphale didn't mean the Holy water. Or rather, he didn't mean _only_ the Holy water. There was something in the man's stiffening hand, something small and shiny. Crowley prodded it with the sharp toe of his snakeskin shoe, and there it was, glistening in the moonlight, a work of beautiful craftsmanship, a deadly weapon, a little knife so well made it most certainly belonged to either Heaven or Hell – Crowley couldn't tell which – and more likely than not either cursed or blessed, which ultimately did not matter. He'd have been dead in either case, taking a while to writhe in agony before he uttered his last useless breath.

A soft hiss left his mouth as the feeling of nausea rolled over him, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut. He had been discorporated on plenty of occasions before, on quite a few of them by Aziraphale's own hand, but he had never been killed with a supernaturally charged weapon. For a demon – likewise for an angel, since they were, after all, birds of a feather – that would have been it. No more late dinners at the Ritz, no more tea- and wine-drinking sessions in the bookshop, no more humanity, so controversial but so compelling, no more Earth. And no more Aziraphale. He'd have simply been eliminated out of existence.

Crowley shuddered, his arms instinctively tightening their hold around the angel's shoulders.

This, he reckoned dully, was really starting to look like some very badly made noir film. Buckets of Holy water. Bloodied daggers all around. Crowley's mind refused to comprehend what the fuck was going on. He wished to pinch himself, pinch Aziraphale too, and wake the hell up, probably nursing a bastard of a hangover and bathing in cold sweat, but in his own bed – or on the sofa in the backroom of the angel's blasted bookshop – remembering all of what was happening here and now as a mere nightmare.

He opened his yellow eyes, ridiculously, against all better judgement hoping that he'd come to in the familiar surroundings, but the street was still around them. The corpse in the puddle of blood, the daggers, the bucket – all were in their respective places, bugger them, and all looked nothing but real.

"Thank you," Crowley whispered, unable to take the quiver out of his voice, as he pulled Aziraphale even closer.

He was already squeezing the powerless frame of the angel so hard that a human being in his place would have been crushed and certainly had great trouble breathing, but to Crowley even that didn't seem close enough. He was painfully aware of a few things simultaneously: that he had just escaped death – and that would have been total, final termination; that both of them were most probably in even greater danger now; and that he was utterly, speechlessly terrified.

There was another thing, though, something which Crowley, partly because of his demonic nature, partly because he was simply in a state of shock, could not quite recognise on the spot.

It took him a few long moments filled with terror the extent of which was matched only twice in his existence – millennia ago when he had Fallen, and just a couple of decades back when he had stood shoulder to shoulder with Aziraphale, intending to defy Lucifer himself with a stupid tyre iron in his hand – to realise what exactly it was. When it finally did dawn upon him, the traitorous trembling in his limbs only intensified, because what he was feeling – or rather the sheer intensity of what it was, raw and plain – was terrifying in its nature, too, even though it didn't really come as a surprise at all. It wasn't anything new – he'd known the feeling all along, of course, as it had been his constant companion for centuries on end.

Before his courage could betray him and he changed his mind, Crowley turned his head just a tad so that his lips first brushed over the softest cloud of Aziraphale's disarranged, damp, curls and then found the warmth of the angel's temple. The kiss came out as a weightless caress, Crowley's mouth quivering against the smoothness of Aziraphale's skin.

In the great scheme of things, it was the first kiss in many ways, a novelty of sorts. The first kiss Crowley had ever given to anyone consciously and lovingly. The first one he'd ever given to Aziraphale. The first kiss ever bestowed upon an angel by a demon. It hadn't come quite as a surprise for him and he thought it shouldn't come as a surprise for Aziraphale either, not really – it had been going to this anyway, for all those years after the false Apocalypse and for decades upon decades before that.

The irony was bitter, though – he had finally scraped enough courage to resolve to show affection but the circumstances couldn't possibly be less suitable.

Yet it turned out that what he had just done was, apparently, a right thing to do – probably the only right thing – because the angel's body relaxed against his, as if life itself had just been breathed back into him. Just a tiny bit, yes, but it was all Crowley needed to know for now.

"Let's go, Aziraphale," he said and, having felt a faintest of nods, cautiously backed his way – with the angel still securely held in his arms – towards the Bentley.

It was neatly parked on the other side of the street. Crowley didn't see it but he knew it was there all the same, just like he knew it hadn't been there only five minutes ago. The Bentley was his good old friend. The Bentley knew where it was expected. The Bentley's front doors stood readily open.

"Come on."

He gently nudged Aziraphale towards the passenger's seat. 

"Where are we going?" the angel asked without looking at him, his voice listless as if he weren't particularly interested in the final destination anyway.

"Mayfair," Crowley said quietly and cautiously shut the door once the angel was in the car.

Inside, Aziraphale only nodded his head, his eyes cast down and fixed on his bloodied hands.

Crowley had always preferred the bookshop – there was something inexplicably appealing in its unsophisticated arrangement, something almost as soothing in its dusty derelict furniture as in Aziraphale's ethereal divinity. The sight of its smouldering remains on that day in August of '91 had been engraved into Crowley's memory forever, along with the sense of uncontrollable dread and despair so profound that it seemed to make his love for the place even fiercer. He'd never admitted it to the angel, of course, scoffing and scowling at the dust motes whenever he had a chance to, but he suspected his friend had figured him out long ago and simply played along, for the sake of humouring Crowley, if naught else.

The bookshop wasn't the best place to run to just now, though. Something was telling Crowley that if what had happened hadn't yet managed to break Aziraphale completely – and judging by the vacant look in the angel's eyes he was balancing on the very edge of tumbling down into the land of no return, and it terrified Crowley more than all the rest because he didn't quite know what that land of not return was like; he'd once been a resident of Heaven, he'd dwelled in Hell, but he'd never encountered insanity up close and personal – then going back to the bookshop with its dusty heavenly radiance would definitely give his angel a helping shove. Crowley didn't need that, thank you very much. Besides, if, after what had just taken place, someone from the Above or Below intended to pay a visit to check on things, they would without a doubt end up in the angel's customary abode. So, Mayfair it had to be, for the time being at least, and what they were to do afterwards… Crowley stopped himself from contemplating that by force, doing his best to somehow regain control over the runaway train of his thoughts. One step at a time, he told himself, otherwise he might join Aziraphale on that narrow ledge where sanity met its opposite, and what good would he be then? No, he needed to stay strong for the sake of the angel.

Before he got in the car, though, Crowley sprinted back to the gory scene and retrieved the dagger Aziraphale had held – he didn't know where he'd got that from, and what kind of power it was charged with, but he suspected they might need something like that soon enough. The journey to Mayfair took them a decent ten minutes. Less than it should have according to the traffic regulations, more than it would have had Crowley really been driving. Since all he was doing was stare through the window shield with his snake eyes open wide in inexplicable confusion, the Bentley took the liberty to settle for somewhere in the middle.

One of Crowley's long-fingered hands lay on the steering wheel, his fingertips drawing grateful patterns on its warm leather upholstery; the other rested on Aziraphale's thigh, giving it a soft squeeze every now and then. His slit pupils were fixed unseeingly on the road in front of them – he couldn't quite bring himself up to lock them with those of the angel. The ex-angel, something in his mind suggested fearfully, but Crowley pushed the thought away in denial. He wasn't quite ready to face the horrendous entirety of what had just happened. He didn't dare to look at Aziraphale because he knew he wouldn't be able to hold himself back. He didn't even know back from what exactly – panic, hysteria, or wrapping his long limbs around him – but he knew that the Bentley wasn't the place for whatever it was he might do and now wasn't the time.

So he caressed its steering wheel. He squeezed Aziraphale's thigh. He stared at the road. He tried to think of what he'd do if they opened the door to a flatful of uninvited guests from the Downstairs. Or from Up Above for that matter, and he didn't know which would be worse. He failed miserably. He simply didn't know so he resorted to hoping that everything would play out for the best – after all, the Universe had always looked out for him, it might as well keep doing just that now, too.

Blindly, he felt for Aziraphale's hand and squeezed it instead of his thigh. The angel's fingers were cold and clammy; but oh, of course, they were – there still was blood on them. Crowley only squeezed them harder.

For once in a lifetime, the Bentley kept empathetic silence.

*****


	2. Chapter 2

_And if you want to bleed, just bleed_   
_And if you want to bleed, don't breathe_   
_A word_

_Just step away and let the world spin.*©_

******

To Crowley's enormous relief, the flat was devoid of any kind of strange supernatural presence and as pristinely clean as no flat had any right to be. His first thought upon entering, a rather detached one, was that it seemed like a whole eternity had passed since he'd left it earlier that evening for a date at the Ritz with the angel. Once again he asked himself, incredulous, how things could have gone from so promisingly good to so utterly devastating in such a short time, but there was no use in wondering, of course. Things just tended to do that kind of thing, that was how. And in the meantime, he had other, much more pressing, matters to tend rather than philosophise about the nature of things.

First, there was blood on Aziraphale's hands. There had been blood on his own hands, too, and on his shirt where it came in contact with Aziraphale's bloodied fingers, but Crowley had made it vanish once they had got into the Bentley. He dearly wished he could do the same to the gory smears on the angel's hands, making them disappear at least out of sight if not out of their memories. He could have miracled the blood away, of course; so well, in fact, that not a single trace of red would have been left on the angel's immaculate fingers. They would have looked sterile clean, but therein lay the problem, Crowley suspected. They would have _looked_ clean but they wouldn't have _been_. No, Aziraphale needed to _see_ it go, so the old human way it was tonight, water and soap and fluffy towels.

He closed the door and locked all the locks there were to be locked, and added a couple of intricate spells to them, too, although it was likely that none of those things would manage to prevent unwelcome guests from entering should they decide to visit. Still, locking the door only seemed reasonable, didn't it? It wasn't like there was something more efficient to do anyway.

Once it had been done, Crowley practically led Aziraphale to the bathroom, walking close behind him, one arm wrapped around the angel's waist, the other cupping the curve of his shoulder. The warmth of Aziraphale's body was making Crowley's palms itch; an utterly inappropriate reaction considering the circumstances, but Crowley was wearing his human form, and the said form had been craving the angel's proximity for ages on end, so perhaps the demon's physical giddiness could be excused.

_But it shouldn't be happening like this, their so coveted chance to be close, oh Lo--, Someone, _why_ was it happening like this?_

The bathroom Crowley owned, down to every single one of its pentagonal tiles, black and glossy, was a perfect match for his high-tech, slick, flat. It also didn't have any right to be of a size it was of as old Mayfair houses did not customarily have the space to accommodate a built-in Jacuzzi bath tub and a walk-in wardrobe spacious enough to be called a proper room. Crowley tended to absent-mindedly suppose they did, though, and the bathroom dared not disagree. Despite the popular belief that those of supernatural persuasion did not have the pressing necessity to wash – although some representatives could certainly do with a good scrub – and could simply use some magic in order to maintain personal hygiene, Crowley rather liked the process. He didn't need to sleep or eat either, but he was a hedonistic creature of comfort – and he'd been living among humans for the past six millennia, too – so indulging in taking a hot bath on drenched nights, which were plentiful in London, was for Crowley one of life's greatest pleasures. As it happened, he was also a creature of vanity, so the bathroom was full of mirrors of all shapes and sizes.

And here, in the middle of all this glistening, state-of-the-art, cutting-edge, obviously over-the-top and perfectly decadent luxury, stood his angel, in his old-fashioned blood-stained clothes, with his blood-smeared hands hanging limply along his sides. His face was pale and pained and haggard and his eyes… they were the worst, Crowley thought. They were the worst because they seemed devoid of any sort of emotion, giving Aziraphale a look close to catatonic. Nothing and no one could possibly look more out of place in his bathroom, Crowley reflected bitterly.

What he wanted to do most of all right now was to strangle with his own bare hands whoever – whatever – had planned this. Because all of this was wrong. Torturing Aziraphale this way was wrong. Making Aziraphale Fall was wrong.

But there was no one to turn into a scapegoat, so what Crowley did next was gently nudge the angel towards the big black ceramic sink, turn on the water, manually adjust its force and warmth, take Aziraphale's cold trembling hands in his and put them under the bubbling stream that was running from the tap. The water whirling down the drain turned pink, then red. Aziraphale gulped, and Crowley gave his fingers what he hoped felt as a reassuring squeeze. He miracled up some soap, massaged it into Aziraphale's skin and watched in a taken aback kind of way how the foam turned rusty red, too. He washed it off and manifested yet more soap. Aziraphale's hands had begun to shake more noticeably as they got cleaner.

It took Crowley quite a while to wash away every single trace of blood – those little clots in the creases on the angel's palms and underneath his short, manicured nails – but that was all right. When he was almost done, working with a small fluffy towel to dry them, arms still protectively wrapped around Aziraphale from behind, his chin resting lightly on Aziraphale's shoulder, the angel finally spoke. His voice was grave but steady enough.

"Thank you, my dear," he said ever so quietly.

It was obvious he was trying hard to sound calm while being anything _but_ calm, but as far as Crowley was concerned, in this case it was the thought that counted. 

There was a very ill-timed remark ready to slip off the tip of his tongue, something about how Aziraphale was very likely the first demon to _ever_ call somebody a _'dear'_, but, thankfully, he managed to shut himself up in time. It must be nerves, Crowley reckoned. Nerves was a very human kind of excuse – he'd seen plenty of them poor sods roaring with laughter in situations which were nothing but tragic – and even though he was not one of them, he was sure as hell allowed to behave like one having spent six millennia side by side with those fascinating creatures. And then Crowley raised his eyes, meeting those of Aziraphale in the mirror, and all hysteria-induced jokes left his head without a trace. 

They were indeed a very pale, faded hue of blue and so full of distress that something clenched painfully in Crowley's chest. He was a demon, all right, but for some unfathomable reason he was capable of feeling all the emotions he wasn't naturally supposed to feel. He could feel sorrow. He could feel sympathy. And he could _love_, too. It might have been just a glitch in the entire system of how demons functioned, or that the majority of them were simply way too preoccupied with being resentful and furious to give any other emotion a try, or the fact that they hadn't spent several millennia side by side with a divine creature that was constantly radiating affection, but none of that really mattered in the end. What did was that he could love, and he _loved_ Aziraphale, and seeing him now, seeing him looking back with these strange, new, different eyes, so full of anguish and confusion, was breaking his heart to pieces.

Crowley shook his head lightly.

"Hush, it's the least I can do for you, angel--" and then he trailed off, abruptly.

It was one thing to refer to Aziraphale as an angel in his inner monologues, and quite a different one to actually call him so now that… There was a ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of Aziraphale's lips, but it wasn't pulling them up, no. The smile looked dismal, making Aziraphale's face sadder still.

"Shit… if it's too bad…" Crowley interrupted himself again. _Of course_, it was way too fucking bad. Bloody hell, could he ever get right with his own tongue? "I mean, I won't call you that if it's… if…" he couldn't finish.

Crowley's eyes, shining amber in the soft light that was filling the bathroom, bore into those of Aziraphale, so extraordinarily devoid of colour. 

"No, it's… it's all right," the angel sighed and gave smiling another wretched try. "And anyway, people still use it as an endearment of sorts… right?"

"Sure," Crowley croaked. He lowered his gaze, not being able to withstand this new, agonised look in his angel's eyes.

Aziraphale nodded.

"I knew what he was intending to do even before he rounded the corner. I felt it. I don't know how, but I did. And it wasn't only Holy water; he had a knife, too, Crowley." His gaze was almost pleading now, so Crowley let his arms wrap around the angel's middle in a proper manner, in an attempt to soothe and support, but even his best attempts at affection still felt way too inadequate even for his liking. "He had a knife and it was _blessed_. I… I thought it was someone from either Up Above or Down Below, I was sure it couldn't be a human… He was going to kill you, Crowley. He…"

All of Aziraphale's so scrupulously gained self-control seemed to be falling apart again, and Crowley could only stand this much. In one smooth movement he swapped their places, turning the angel in his arms so that they were facing each other. The next thing he knew, Aziraphale was clinging to him for dear life, and his tears were flowing freely. They were hot against the crook of Crowley's neck, and Aziraphale's muffled whisper kept resounding in his ears.

"I killed him, Crowley… he'd have killed you otherwise… I couldn't let him, I couldn't… not _you…_ not _now_."

"Angel…" Crowley murmured, unable to help another shudder. His voice sounded frighteningly tender to his own ears. He hadn't even known he was capable of feeling, let alone expressing this extent of tenderness. "Aziraphale…"

His hands relocated to Aziraphale's face, cupping his cheeks, gingerly wiping the moisture away, all in vain because the tears continued to flow in an unceasing stream as his angel sniffed trying to suppress his convulsive sobs, unsuccessfully. 

"Angel…" Crowley repeated as his thumbs continued to move over Aziraphale's tear-streaked cheeks. "You're not alone in this, Aziraphale. You hear me?" He moved back an inch or two, looking into his reddened eyes. His hands drew to the back of the angel's head, entangling themselves into the mussed, damp curls. "Whatever happens next, I'll be around. If they come for you, they'll have to deal with me first. No one's taking you from me. Neither Lucifer, nor the blasted archangels. Not even _Himself_. They can go all bugger each other for all I care."

"Don't say that_,_" Aziraphale sniffed, wincing.

"I _mean_ that, angel."

It was a supernaturally bold talk from a rather low-rank demon, of course, especially considering that the demon in question had never been particularly brave to begin with. Like all demonic folk, Crowley was more prone to paranoia rather than to bravery, which made him cautious and cunning. The first time he'd been truly brave – which he personally thought of more in terms of _bat-shit crazy _– had happened on the day of the failed Apocalypse, and he had genuinely hoped it'd be the last time. As it was turning out, he was apparently mad enough to defy the guys from both Below and Above if push came to shove once again, and he bloody well meant it. If any of those bastards who'd set it all up ever dared show up on his porch, Crowley was resolute to give them one hell of a meeting. Literally. He was a demon, he knew what Hell was, after all.

*****

There is a nightingale flapping its delicate wings tirelessly outside Crowley's windows. He flutters up and then down and finally settles precariously on the ledge.

Inside, the light is switched on, not too bright to scare the nightingale away but not dim enough to let the two beings in the room see him. To them, the night looks dark and hostile, and as totally devoid of any friendly spirits as it could possibly be. They are sitting on a big white sofa, close enough to each other to make them look like they're huddling together against some malicious environment. The fair-haired being is clutching a glass filled with liquid almost the same colour as the eyes of his associate. His hands are shaking ever so slightly. His usually open and kind face is bearing a grimace of pain, his skin is pale and there are deep lines on it. One runs vertically between his eyebrows, making him look concerned, the other two – down from the corners of his mouth, making him look tragic.

His counterpart sits with one of his knees pulled close to his chest, half facing the fair-haired man-shaped being. There's another glass filled with that same amber liquid standing on the coffee table in front of the sofa, but it looks untouched. The second being looks anxious and twitchy, throwing worried glances around the room at regular intervals as if expecting shadows in its corners to step out and take more prominent and horrifying shapes, which they, of course, might just do, even a nightingale knows that. His hands are restless in his lap, as if their owner wishes for nothing more than to be able to put them on his partner but not quite daring to do so.

*****

"How did you even know that fellow was going to do me in for good?" Crowley was presently asking.

Aziraphale's shoulders were slumped and his hands still shook visibly as he was nursing his drink. Whiskey surely could not solve their present predicament, but it had a soothing impact on the nerve endings in Azirapahle's corporeal body if naught else. Crowley didn't know if that would be of much use, but right now he guessed even a little help would do.

It was both unnerving and reassuring how there was virtually nothing demonic about Aziraphale, Crowley reflected. Right now, he seemed more like a very tired and a very distressed human being rather than anyone or anything else. He looked frighteningly vulnerable, and it was not doing good things to Crowley's perception of the world. It was crushing all its fundamental truths, is what it was doing, and it made him sick to his very stomach, almost literally so. He couldn't even take a sip of his own whiskey, even though nerve endings in his own corporeal body were in a dire need of soothing, too.

Meanwhile, Aziraphale just shrugged. "I don't quite know it myself…" he said, letting out a weary sigh. "I'd had a… some sort of premonition, if you will."

"A premonition that someone was gonna splash a bucketful of Holy water on my head, huh?"

Aziraphale shook his head.

"Not quite like that… I honestly don't know how to explain it. It started a few weeks ago. I was reading in the bookshop…"

A brief, barely visible shadow crossed the angle's face as he mentioned his home of many a century. So not taking him back to the bookshop really must have been a wise thing to do, Crowley remarked silently, thank someone for small mercies.

"…when I had a feeling, completely out of the blue, that… I don't know, that something might happen to you. Something bad. I had – and still have – no idea where it came from. It was simply like that, one moment I was reading, and the next one I was worried sick and it was driving me delirious with anxiety. I think I did give you a bit of a surprise calling you out in the middle of the night. Remember?"

"You did, all right," Crowley said, and, involuntarily, despite all the horrors which had happened earlier that evening, he felt a small, almost wistful, smile stretching his lips. 

Right now, it seemed like what Aziraphale was talking about had happened in another life, one where everything was so much simpler and where his only concern was which dessert to tempt the angel to at the Ritz. He did remember it, of course, how couldn't he? Aziraphale had dragged him out of bed, literally so, under the pretence that there was a some sort of night fair he absolutely needed to visit. It had sounded so outrageously ridiculous that Crowley, mellow from sleep and having certain troubles comprehending what the hell was going on, had actually agreed. After a decent amount of grumbling and complaining, of course, but he had accepted the proposal all the same. What he'd thought back then, however, wasn't even remotely connected with anybody's murderous plans, of course. It had been more than two decades since that messed up case of Apocalypse, and none of their respective bosses had actually contacted them. By that time, he'd almost stopped being paranoid about it. What he had thought about Aziraphale's call was that it must have been just another stage of their ever so slowly developing relationship. He'd suspected they both knew that they'd been quite openly flirting with each other over all those post-Armageddon years, so, somewhat unexpected as it was, the angel's midnight call hadn't really surprised him all that much.

"I thought it was a date, though," Crowley said, smirking a little at the memories of how the angel had reluctantly admitted that he must have misunderstood the information about that fair of his and that it wasn't apparently being held on that particular night, pretending to be mortified but not actually being. They'd ended up at the St. James's, sharing a bottle of wine and trying to see the stars despite the glare of the city lights. He remembered how warm the wine Aziraphale had manifested had made him feel, how warm the proximity of the angel sitting beside him on the lawn had made him feel.

Aziraphale was smiling a little sad smile, too.

"Well, it was, in a sense, wasn't it?" He gave Crowley a brief glance and cast his eyes down again. "I needed to make sure you were all right. But that feeling didn't disappear even then, so I…" he sighed with an uncertain shrug. "So I just tried to be around as often as possible. I was afraid something might happen to you while you were on your own. I didn't know what it could be, and that was even more unnerving."

Crowley nodded thoughtfully. It was true; the past few weeks had indeed seen them meeting each other on a regular basis. On a daily basis. Well, they practically spent the entire 24 hours of each day in each other's company. He remembered being vaguely taken aback when Aziraphale had volunteered to join him as he had ventured out to find a companion for one of his hyacinths, and even more surprised when the angel had offered him to accompany him to the children's asylum as a part of his mission of mercy, which Aziraphale vehemently refused to call _messing_ with people. He was just being helpful, not messing, the angel had stated courtly. Crowley had rolled his eyes, of course, to keep the appearance, but had agreed all the same. He _wanted_ to be with Aziraphale, and if it was a blasted kindergarten party, so what? He could always get the kids to play some pranks, couldn't he?

It turned out he hadn't played any pranks, though. He'd ended up making _papier-mâché_ Bentley models with quite an impressive bunch of them. Aziraphale had looked complacent. _'If I _ever_ hear anything about sparks of goodness, angel,'_ Crowley had said back then, scowling, _'I'm gonna turn your dusty bookshop into a gleaming fetish sexshop.'_ Aziraphale had beamed at him in that unique manner of his and treated Crowley to a dinner for his pains.

"Who did that guy work for, you think?" Crowley asked glumly.

"I don't know. I was thinking – that was, if I wasn't just being prejudiced – that your people were more likely to want to get back at you. They have never been particularly pleased with you, and then there was that sorry Apocalypse business, and… that incident with Ligur, too. I hadn't heard anything from my--" Aziraphale trailed off momentarily. "…from Up Above for years, so I assumed that since they didn't seem to be overly displeased with me for actually assisting in the prevention of the Armageddon, it wouldn't make any sense for them to bother with you. I got a… that pocket knife at some point and put some divine spells into it, just in case some of your people might want to raise trouble, but I could never have thought I'd have to use it on a _human_. But I sensed him, Crowley. I sensed the danger and the malice, and I just… I was sure I'd sensed some demonic aura ever before he rounded the corner, something malevolent, but… it just happened so fast."

Aziraphale's voice had got thick somewhere in the middle of his narration, and Crowley's protective arm was around his shoulders in less than a blink of an eye.

"Oh, angel…" he muttered in dismay, pulling him closer, once again feeling that overwhelming fit of compassion. He buried his nose into the so reassuring, fragrant, cloud of Aziraphale's curls, saying nothing else for the time being, just holding him, both hoping he was giving support and craving it at the same time.

This way of dealing with him seemed surprisingly messy. It could, of course, have been plotted by his side – and Hell indeed should have quite a big grudge against him, what with his role in certainly _not_ helping the Apocalypse to happen, and that miserable failure in replacing the infants, and then there was Ligur to take into account, too, even though the Antichrist had actually brought him back to existence while he was at it, repairing the damage that had already been done to the world. Still, what good – or bad – killing him could possibly do? Torture was more Hell's style. They could have their eternal fun simply by recalling him from the Earth, taking him away from Aziraphale, and confining him to Hell. They could make him suffer in thousands of various ways, physical and mental, and he wouldn't have been able to do a single thing about it. Soaking him in Holy water or poking him with a blessed knife if the former failed to work just didn't seem _reasonable_.

So, had it been Heaven? Low-played but not impossible, he thought, running what he very much hoped was a soothing hand along Aziraphale's spine. Still, they could have simply sent somebody to smite him, couldn't they? Why go to such trouble with humans and all that divine paraphernalia?

"I couldn't let him kill you, Crowley. Not _you_," Aziraphale murmured, his hand creeping up to clutch at the front of Crowley's black shirt, and shook his head, his curls tickling Crowley's nose. "I wouldn't have been able to exist if I had. You're my only true friend in God's entire Universe. I couldn't let him harm you, my _dearest_."

Aziraphale's lips were a warm, moist softness moving against the side of Crowley's neck as he spoke, and the sensation made the demon shudder. Complemented by what the angel was saying, that very last word, that _'dearest'_… He had never been Aziraphale's _dearest_ before, and this moment, it _should_ have been different. It should have been happening in other circumstances, never in these, never when Aziraphale was an angel no more; never when there was that proverbial sword of Damocles hanging over both their heads ready to be dropped down any time now. This moment should be promising the two of them years upon years of finally discovered, shared sort of happiness, so unfamiliar to either of them; all it was really doing, though, was promising to be perhaps one of the very last precious moments they had together.

With difficulty, Crowley swallowed, the click in his throat sounding way too loud in the stillness around them. His very soul seemed to be breaking into pieces as he thought of the possible implications that Aziraphale's Fall was going to bring in its wake while his corporeal body was literally going insane from the sheer proximity of Aziraphale; Crowley's heart was pounding what felt like everywhere – in his temples, in his throat, in his very fingertips and down there in the pit of his stomach, and that last one was the most terrible and the most wonderful feeling them all, the desire he'd been nursing for hundreds upon hundreds of years.

Crowley had never concealed the fact that he wasn't much of a fan of coercion and physical temptation even though it was rather unambiguously stated in his job description. Causing trouble on a subtler level and by more intricate means was what Crowley would call his cup of tea, but it didn't mean he was ignorant of the vast range of opportunities that such carnal pleasure as sex presented to the likes of him. Yet, all glorious opportunities aside, Crowley had never been able to get rid of the feeling that he was cheating whenever he had to resort to it. There wasn't much art and imagination involved, was there? He'd had quite a few encounters with humans, both male a female, over the span of time he'd been working for Below, but the last time he'd resorted to sex trying to tempt somebody had been such a long time ago that Crowley could hardly remember it. There had been a few more encounters afterwards, mainly provoked by his dire need to take his mind off things and off Aziraphale in particular.

Nonetheless, notwithstanding his views on sexual encounters as a means of temptation, he was still a demon and a distinctly man-shaped being of the world, and he was in love, too, had been in love for ages, which all together explained the giddiness and excitement caused by Aziraphale's presence _this_ close to him, by Aziraphale's lips moving against the side of his neck, his breath scorching on Crowley's skin, by Aziraphale's hand now not quite clutching at his shirt but squeezing Crowley's side instead.

What the demon really wanted was to take Aziraphale's face into his hands and kiss him for all he was worth, doing the most wicked kinds of things with his wicked tongue, and then lead the angel to the bedroom and carry on with various other no less wicked activities. Even more so, all wicked things aside – he didn't even have much trouble admitting it to himself anymore – he wanted to show Aziraphale all the _love_ he felt for him.

After the failed Apocalypse both of them had been rendered virtually jobless, what with the Antichrist's veto on messing with people in one way or another, left to their own devices and seemingly forgotten by their respective employees. Crowley had been positive they weren't really supervised any more, thus probably granted freedom of will. Aziraphale and he had spent many an evening in long discussions on what exactly that freedom meant and what was going to become of them, and they both seemed to reach the same conclusion that they must have been left alone, an exception from the general rule; an angel and a demon who'd messed up the bloody Apocalypse; an angel and a demon who had somehow, against all odds and despite all rules, ended up being friends.

And then, not much later, their friendship had undergone a transformation on some delicate level; and Crowley finally knew, with a huge sense of relief, which direction it had taken. He suspected Aziraphale knew, too, and did absolutely nothing to prevent it, to Crowley's delight. They'd never discussed this particular issue but it still felt as if there was some sort of unspoken arrangement involved, an arrangement which required them to take it slow, and they did just that, wining and dining and flirting with each other for years, but, sooner or later, Crowley was sure, there was only one way for it to end, and that was with the two of them in one home and in one bed. They'd been sharing everything for hundreds of years on end – their time, interests, food, drinks, and Aziraphale was particularly partial to Crowley's desserts at the Ritz – so it was only reasonable they should one day share one last thing there was left to share. It didn't even bother Crowley anymore that, if they did finally reach the point when they would be stripped of all clothes and get busy with very physical sort of love, there would be trouble. He was almost positive that trouble was out of question here – he'd long reconciled with the fact of _loving_ Aziraphale, and he was sure love would not cause his angel any harm, even if this love was coming from the likes of him.

_But it still shouldn't be happening like this_, Crowley thought bitterly, by sheer effort of will and just a tad of magic forcing his body to calm down. He was sure that if he offered sex as a source of consolation – like humans did almost all the time – Aziraphale wouldn't turn him down, not now. It was just that it somehow felt wrong to Crowley, as if he would be exploiting the angel, and he didn't want that. Hell would have resented him for such thoughts and then dubbed him the most useless demon of all times. Crowley wouldn't give a damn, though; he knew perfectly well that, by Hell's standards, he'd always been a screw-up of a demon in the first place.

They had been taking it slow up until now, so slow it would remain. Besides, there were other, more urgent matters to consider.

"Angel," Crowley said at last, when he had managed to get his breathing under relative control and his thoughts weren't revolving around where he'd want to have those plump red lips in other, more favourable, circumstances. "I think we need to get going."

"Where?" Aziraphale's voice sounded weary and indifferent, as if he wasn't really interested in saving himself from whatever might come for them.

Crowley could be an optimist in many situations, yet this one was proving to be so devastating from whichever point he looked at it that he had little doubt that something would come for them sooner rather than later – Hell couldn't just leave newly turned demons right where they were, there had to be some long excruciating bureaucratic process of registering the incomers. It was already unnerving they still hadn't been visited by representatives of either side. The angel's apathy wasn't making it any easier for Crowley to deal with it all, even though he knew precisely what Aziraphale was going through, and that trying to sort out their future was perhaps the last thing on his mind.

"Don't know," he admitted, "but I don't think it'd be wise to stay here given the circumstances. If we leave, that'll at least give us the advantage of a head start. We could stay the night somewhere nondescript, a motel maybe, and… Shit," Crowley sighed again.

He couldn't think straight, and he doubted Aziraphale would be able to come up with something reasonable, not in the state he was in. He was feeling awfully unprepared for anything of this magnitude, absolutely inadequate left alone to face and handle the consequences. He already missed the Aziraphale hed' always known awfully, the one who'd have an idea what to do, but that was just wishful thinking and unforgivable waste of the precious time, no matter how much of it they had left. The only thing Crowley allowed himself to hope for was that after a while, when the initial shock passed, they'd once again have two minds analysing and making decisions, just like they used to before because Crowley desperately needed assistance now. For the time being, though, it was obvious he was the one in charge, and their very lives depended on choices he made.

"It just doesn't feel safe here," he said softly, allowing his natural caution and paranoia to speak up and take the reign.

After a short while, the angel's hand slipped off Crowley's side and he sat back up with a resigned sigh and a nod of his head.

"You think they'll come for me? Your-- oh, sod it, I suppose I should call things by their real names--"

Crowley winced.

"_Our_ people, now. Will they come to collect me?"

"I…" Crowley opened his mouth to once again repeat that hatefully dull _'I don't know'_, but Aziraphale didn't let him.

"I just want to know how much time I still have with you," he said, giving Crowley a glance so full of sadness the demon's heart clenched in his chest yet again. There was a rueful smile on Aziraphale's lips, too, and it was making his expression even more tragic, the realisation of what a huge mess they were in finally kicking in for Crowley. "Before they drag me to Hell. It's what they must do, isn't it?"

This time Crowley couldn't help a groan. Partly because of the flat finality in Aziraphale's voice, partly because of how horrible the prospect was. Partly because Aziraphale might have been just right. Neither of them knew how those things functioned these days – there hadn't been an angel who Fell in the past several millennia, let alone who Fell while being stationed on Earth, so there was no luxury of a precedent. They might come or they might not, who the hell could know that.

What Crowley said, though, sounded incredibly – perhaps, _insanely_ – brave even to his own ears.

"Do you really think that I'm going to let whoever crawls up from Down There take you away from me that easily?"

"But—"

"But what?" Crowley hissed, and Aziraphale looked at him, startled, a blend of pain and surprise in his tired, ancient eyes. "I don't know how the rules go these days, you see, people – angels – haven't been Falling much lately; they might come for you, for whatever reason, maybe just in spite, but, huh, they're not getting you. I'm gonna give them one hell of a meeting if they try. A whole new remake of the Apocalypse."

"But what if you--"

"Shut up, Aziraphale," Crowley shook his head, almost exasperated. "Just shut up, will you? You saved my sodding life, and you didn't do it for nothing. You're not going anywhere. That's it. Full stop. Bugger them. I'll think of something to get us out of it."

Crowley breathed out through his nose, looking at the angel pointedly until the latter dropped his sad, pale blue eyes to his lap with a reserved nod. His hand, though, relocated to Crowley's knee and gave it a firm squeeze. Crowley covered it with his own immediately, holding it tightly.

"I'm so sorry for getting us into this mess."

"I promise you, angel, we'll make it one way or another," he said softly, hoping he was right yet so far from being sure of it it was devastating.

They were on their way less than a quarter of an hour later – there wasn't much to be done in terms of preparing the flat for Crowley's absence, however long it might be, if he ever saw it again at all. The angel stayed in the living room, seated on the sofa and still nursing his drink – there wasn't much of it gone, what Aziraphale did was mainly rotate the glass in his hands restlessly – whilst Crowley collected all his numerous credit cards from various bank accounts that he had all over the world. He didn't really have to – after all, he could get pretty much all he wanted or needed by simple means of tweaking with reality – but in these circumstances he was unwilling to use any magical interference lest it be noticed by some of his superiors. He wasn't sure they were clever enough to monitor that, as backward as Hell was on new technologies, but one could never be too cautious.

He kept the Bentley kept to a steady 60 mph, desperately wanting to push the pedal but once again not daring to do so – it'd require too much miracling people and other vehicles out of his way. He'd told Aziraphale the truth – he had no idea whatsoever where to go whilst they were speaking about it back in Mayfair, but once he had got behind the wheel, his first choice had seemed obvious – Adam Young. He was still residing in Tadfield, loving the place as much as he'd done in his childhood, and since he and the two of them had somehow grown to be good acquaintances over the past twenty years, Crowley saw him as possibly the only person who could perhaps help them, and if that didn't work – provide them with a shelter for the night. It might not be wise to waste time waiting until morning anywhere at all, it could be more reasonable to be on their way and get out of here as quickly as possible, but the problem was Crowley didn't have the slightest notion where they could escape to, and he was so shaken and exhausted he couldn't quite contemplate the entire situation on the go. He needed rest, and so did the angel, and then, perhaps, he could come up with something. Besides, Adam could be in possession of some vital information on what the hell was going on.

Yet, when they reached Adam's, the lights were off and no one answered the door, which made Crowley let out a frustrated curse under his breath – somehow, he had never considered the possibility of Adam being elsewhere, and here they were, in the small hours of the morning, in the middle of English nowhere, Crowley knackered out of his mind, mentally which was worse than physically, with the angel on his hands who wasn't an angel anymore and possible prospects of being found, caught and dragged to either Hell or Heaven by whichever side located them first.

"Fuck," Crowley repeated as he strode back to the Bentley through the drizzling rain, feeling dismayingly helpless.

"Nobody's home?" Aziraphale asked, sounding even less hopeful than Crowley felt.

Crowley shook his head lightly and gave the angel a brief glance. "No such luck," he sighed. "Let's go find some motel."

They ended up in one three miles south of Tadfield, a nondescript roadside building which had seen better days but suited their purpose just fine – unless Hell or Heaven used some other tracking techniques, it'd be the last place where anyone would look for them, what with the ramshackle parking lot and the old-fashioned neon sing a couple of letters in which didn't even light up. The bored looking girl at the reception gave Crowley's sunglasses an amused glance, not seemingly surprised by the fact that Crowley booked himself and Aziraphale into one double room – times were indeed changing, and that, at least, was playing out in their favour. With his reluctance to resort to miracles, they were indeed lucky that most people wouldn't give a damn seeing two men checking in together, and he wouldn't agree to leave Aziraphale on his own, not for the life of him.

The room was cramped but at least clean enough, a double bed, two bedside tables and a tiny table with two plain chairs all clustering in the not so spacious area, a place far from Crowley's standards of comfort but they weren't ones to be picky tonight. All things considered, they were already lucky no one had caught up with them yet. The angel went in first, moving tiredly towards the window as Crowley locked the door behind them, preferring to leave the lights off. He followed Aziraphale inside, taking his jacket off and throwing it carelessly onto the back of the nearest chair – it would inevitably get crumpled the way it landed there but Crowley, the creature of comfort provided by instantaneous miracles, barely gave it a thought.

"Go to bed, angel," he said, his hand coming to rest on Aziraphale's shoulder thus effectively leaving him almost hugging him. "Sleep a while, I'll watch out and try to think of something."

He didn't know what on Earth they were supposed to do now, and he was feeling tired and lost and scared. The only thing which came to Crowley's mind as a temporary solution would be to fall asleep and deal with everything come morning – that was what Aziraphale himself used to advise him on so many prior occasions. He doubted it was a good idea indeed, but he didn't see any way out as of yet, and the night was taking its toll on him, too. 

Aziraphale sighed softly and after a short hesitation turned to face him, a few good inches still left between the two of them, but it made little to prevent Crowley's heart from skipping a beat. The darkness and their proximity to each other created intimacy Crowley had been longing for for years, decades, centuries on end, and here it was at last, and the bitter irony of the situation didn't escape him – it was still all wrong. It was right, in a way, too, but…

Aziraphale's anguished gaze was what prevented the runaway train of Crowley's thoughts from running away completely. There was so much confusion in it, as if he didn't know anymore where he was standing, and that might very well be true – neither did Crowley, if he was honest. The almost palpable agony in the angel's eyes was hard to stand, so Crowley just surrendered, taking half a step closer and finally wrapping Aziraphale into his arms. His lips ended up pressing a soft, somewhat apprehensive kiss to the angel's forehead, and then he just stood there, holding him close, feeling Aziraphale's body giving in and pressing into him the way Crowley had been dreaming about for ages, the way only a lover's body could.

"Want me to…" Crowley trailed off but pulled himself together and made himself go on – there was really no point in pretending anymore now that he didn't even know how much time they had left. "…to go with you?"

He felt Aziraphale sigh shakily against his neck and then heard him swallow.

"Don't leave me," he whispered, and Crowley felt his hands crumble the fabric of his shirt. "Please."

"Never," Crowley answered in kind, his voice hushed but firm. "I can promise you that much. I'll never leave you, angel. Not as long as I exist, in one form or another."

He heard a shuddering sob muffled against his shoulder and felt himself shiver with emotion. With desire. With fear. With sheer helplessness.

"Come," he whispered and backed his way towards the bed, pulling the angel after himself.

Aziraphale didn't resist in the slightest, following the demon's movement until they took a more horizontal position, half-sitting against the pillows and with Crowley's arms still wrapped around him in a protective tight embrace. He was facing Aziraphale now, their noses only inches apart, and he wasn't certain if they'd ever been this excruciatingly close to each other before, at least as long as both of them were sober. He could feel the angel's breath on his face, warm and moist and just a tad whiskey-tinted, the solid presence of his body so very close to his own, the warmth it was radiating, and, most acutely of all, Aziraphale's hand finally coming to rest on the side of his neck, thumb brushing the spot just below his ear.

Crowley blinked, fixing his gaze on Aziraphale's both so familiar and so unusual eyes, their pupils dilated in the lack of proper light. He could distinguish every single wrinkle on his face, the gossamer web of them running from the corners of his eyes being the most prominent ones; Aziraphale's eyelashes, light and almost transparent at their very tips; his fair eyebrows and the shape of his nose; the outline of his lips, plump and looking so enticingly soft, behind which, he knew, there was a row of somewhat uneven teeth. Just like many times before, Crowley wondered precisely what it would feel like to be able to run his tongue over them. He swallowed, suppressed a shaky sigh and pinned his gaze back to Aziraphale's eyes. He was met with a look so miserable but so tender and so full of love he felt a sting in his own eyes, and it was a novelty of sorts as well – he couldn't quite clearly recall the time he had allowed himself to shed a single tear.

"We've been taking this way too slow, haven't we?" the angel murmured, sounding rueful.

And then he was suddenly moving, almost imperceptibly, and then, in a heartbeat, his mouth rested against Crowley's mouth, just ever so feather-_lightly_, and the demon felt himself grow paralyzed at the very sensation of a kiss he'd been waiting for so long to finally happen. And, ridiculous as it was, he couldn't move. He couldn't even respond to the angel properly. All he was able to accomplish was to keep still against Aziraphale's lips, soaking in the feeling, trying to be exactly in this moment, trying to shun all the rest of the world away. Wishing to remember every little sensation in case this first kiss might become their last. He didn't want to think about that, but hey, what were the odds, really?

"I'm so sorry," Aziraphale whispered, barely audibly, his lips brushing against Crowley's lips.

All the demon could come up with as a response was swallow and shake his head.

"You shouldn't be," he breathed rather than said.

Then Aziraphale kissed him again, and this time Crowley was just a bit more prepared. On the third attempt, he could finally feel the moisture, and on the fourth – the taste of the angel's mouth. It was still nothing but angelic, or so he thought anyway, how could he really know, he'd never had a chance to kiss Aziraphale while he still was divine – that dizzying, familiar mixture – _impression_ – of the scent of warm tea and spices and sunshine Crowley had grown to depend on so much. He whimpered softly into the angel's lips, his hand sliding slowly – almost reverently – from Aziraphale's shoulder, along his arm, along his side, down his hip and then taking the same route back up.

"_Angel_," he murmured shakily and let his fingers entangle themselves into Aziraphale's soft curls. "You're _my_ angel, Aziraphale. Always will be."

He rubbed the sharp tip of his nose against Aziraphale's, feeling how the latter's hand slid to the nape of his neck, pushing him closer again. In a while, Crowley finally got the opportunity to discover what it was actually like to trace the tip of his tongue over Aziraphale's just slightly crooked teeth.

It was _heavenly_.

He had no idea – and no particular wish to know, either – how long they'd been doing just that, kissing each other so excruciatingly thoroughly, because for all he cared they could go on doing just that for a century and he wouldn't get enough of it, when Aziraphale finally pulled back, to his genuine disappointment.

"Crowley," he whispered, right into Crowley's lips, a bit out of breath, as his hand relocated from the nape of his neck to his shoulder and gave it a weak squeeze. Crowley, who didn't wish to return to any real concerns they had presently, simply moved forward until his mouth was once again pressed to the angel's. "Crowley, my… please, give me a moment--"

"Shhh," Crowley shushed him and went back to trying to kiss him. "I'll never hurt you, Aziraphale, you--"

But, to his astonishment, Aziraphale actually huffed and shook his head, and that was what managed to bring Crowley to a halt.

"I know you won't," the angel's gaze momentarily slipped down to Crowley's lips and then returned back to his eyes.

He smiled, a little sad smile which made the demon's throat constrict painfully. With a sigh, he pecked Aziraphale softly on the mouth, licked his lips, and drew back, waiting for whatever it was the angel so urgently needed to tell him.

"It's just that… I just want you to know it, while I feel I can _still_ say it. I'm afraid I might soon be unable to--"

"Oh no, you won't," Crowley blurted, realising what exactly Aziraphale had in mind, and shook his head.

He had to elaborate because of the look of utter puzzlement on the angel's face. Well, he had the right to be puzzled – over those six millennia of co-existence they had never _really_ discussed love – at least love in relation to demons and their demonic nature. So Crowley went on, finally telling Aziraphale something he'd deserved to hear ages ago.

"It's really not that difficult to say it as you must think it is. _I love you_, angel. See?"  
  
He smiled, a tight, close-mouthed, smile, and waited for the pain. It didn't hesitate to appear, sharp and ever so inevitable, but he kept smiling nonetheless. If nothing else, the look of absolute astonishment on Aziraphale's face was worth a smile. The other reason was that he'd consciously wanted to say just that for the past four hundred years or so.  
  
"But…" Aziraphale trailed off, eyes big and wondering and for the first time since the wretched incident that had happened earlier more or less devoid of the horrible expression of loss and sadness. "But you… you _can_…?"

"I can, angel, and I will." Crowley moved closer and nuzzled his lips against Aziraphale's ear. "_I love you_," he repeated, wincing.

It hurt more this time. He wondered how many times he could say that before it got unbearable enough to shut him up. Or before he ended up with a mouthful of his own blood. Not everything in Hell was elaborate, but as far as inflicting pain was concerned, it had no equals.

"But how come you never… we never…" Aziraphale sounded completely dumbfounded. His system of the world was apparently crumbling down before his very eyes, and Crowley couldn't blame him for it. "How come your folk never-- or is it just _you_?"

"Never say it?" Crowley asked and pulled back to look at Aziraphale again.

He swallowed, smiled humourlessly, and this time he let his teeth show. He had genuinely hoped to put this talk off until a more appropriate occasion arose but it seemed there was no chance to avoid it any more. And probably no sense in avoiding it anymore, either. All cards were on the table, and now was perhaps as good a time as any.

It was dark in the room, but what did it matter for two supernatural beings? The look of surprise in Aziraphale's eyes slowly changed to utter shock, and as he shifted his gaze between Crowley's eyes and his bleeding mouth, understanding started to dawn in them.

"My…" Aziraphale trailed off, in awe. "Oh my dear…"

His hand crept to Crowley's cheek, caressing it softly, but Crowley winced all the same when the angel's thumb brushed against his lower lip. He could feel the lacerated bits of skin with his tongue inside his mouth. And then Aziraphale was pulling him close, not really kissing him, simply pressing his mouth to his, gingerly, holding Crowley's sweat-coated face in his hands, oh so soft and so gentle. It wasn't going to cure the multitude of tiny wounds in his mouth, of course, but just having the angel doing that already was much of a relief.

"It won't work, Aziraphale," Crowley finally said, pulling back. "You won't heal it."

"But… why?" the angel sounded truly dismal, and Crowley really wished they'd saved this talk for later. He'd seen enough dismay from him over these past few hours but there was no point in concealing the truth.

"Why?" he asked and smirked bitterly. Aziraphale dropped his stunned eyes back to his lips. "It isn't supposed to heal because I'm not supposed to say such things. Not as long as it's genuine, and as you can see, it surely is. It will heal on its own, later, of course, and that's the whole point of it, don't you think?"

"It's… it's cruel." Aziraphale's voice sounded thick and hoarse.

"Hell is cruel, angel," Crowley sighed and brushed a curly lock of hair away from his friend's brow. "We _are_ able to perceive love, contrary to popular belief. It's actually _all_ you wish for after the Fall; just some sodding love, just a little bit of it, to love and to be loved again, just like it used to be before. And why, you can talk of it as much as you please, but there's a price to pay, you see. And the more you talk about it, the more you bleed, the more it hurts, and in the end, you don't want any love anymore, because it's all pain and it makes you hate it, hate it more than anything, because it's really all you want and you can't have it for the life of you and it only hurtsss."

The demon shuddered and blinked, wincing because speaking did hurt, too.

"Crowley," Aziraphale took his face in his hands, apparently trying to shush him. "Crowley, my dear, don't--"

"No, angel," he shook his head stubbornly and grinned. He suspected his grin looked nothing short of feral now, with the blood and all, but he didn't give a damn. "Fuck them," he spat, "because I love you, Aziraphale. Love you, love you, gonna repeat it till…" he half-sobbed, half-giggled. "Love you, ange--"

And then Aziraphale's lips were on his, and he finally couldn't say anything, and Aziraphale's hands held him firmly enough, and he was kissing him, oh bless it, and he could feel Aziraphale's tears – or maybe they were his own – on his cheeks and oh did they sting! But Crowley didn't mind the pain anymore. It was everywhere. It ached for Aziraphale, it ached for himself, it ached because his mouth was full of his own blood, it ached because he had no idea what would become of them and how much time they had left.

"My dear, my _dearest_." Aziraphale's voice was all he could hear. His voice and his breath and his quiet sniffles. "I--"

Crowley's eyes shot open in an instant. "_Don't._"

Aziraphale only shook his head.

"I _know_," Crowley repeated, trying to sound convincing but his voice came out as pleading rather than anything else. "I know you do. That's enough bloodshed; we can always--"

Suddenly, there was a thumb pressed ever so lightly but firmly across his stinging, blood-stained, lips. Aziraphale shook his head.

"Angel--" Crowley tried again but it hurt to speak now that his mouth was bleeding profoundly.

"I don't know what's going to happen later and if there is going to be this _'always'_ for us," Aziraphale whispered. Crowley didn't like the sound of it, no, not at all. He remained silent, though. "I love you," Aziraphale went on, and the way he winced and his lips tightened momentarily didn't escape Crowley's attention. "I have loved you since the dawn of times, it seems. Since the very Garden, maybe even since before that. I do love you, Crowley, always have and always will. I'm only sorry I didn't say it to you earlier when…"

"You ssstubborn bastard," Crowley murmured, his voice drowning in a convulsive sob, and his lips were on Aziraphale's in an instant.

They didn't say anything anymore for a very long time. Kissing didn't work particularly well either, now that they both had enough wounds inside their mouths to make it more tormenting than pleasant. Neither of them slept, too. Minutes dragged past, one agonising chunk of time after another, merging into something Crowley couldn't quite measure. The sky in the east was still devoid of any traces of the quickening dawn, so it couldn't have been very long, but to the demon it felt as if he and Aziraphale had been caught in some sort of a nightmare where time must have ceased to exist completely, leaving the two of them helpless in the darkness.

"Now what?" Aziraphale's voice finally broke the silence that had filled the little austere room that had become their unlikely shelter for the night, making the demon inwardly cringe for the lack of any coherent answer.

He didn't sound as if he was on the brink of another breakdown, but Crowley suspected it was mostly due to no other reason but his being utterly frazzled and probably not physically capable of another fit of tears. Most of all, he suddenly realised, he wished Aziraphale's old self was back. Maybe not his angelic self – now _that_ was out of question, of course – but his assured, optimistic, infuriatingly ineffable, self. To his genuine dismay, Crowley was realising that this atrocious thing which had happened was perhaps too big for him to deal with on his own; he wasn't sure he was actually _capable_ of becoming the one they both could depend upon, not for long anyway. It was he who'd always craved and sought Aziraphale's solid presence and his support, his soothing radiance and reassuring glow of knowing, consciously or not, and it had always been Aziraphale who did the consolation. Crowley simply hadn't been tailored for that, love or no love. 

It didn't mean he wasn't going to do his best – and this time, it really was his _best_ – to make the two of them last for as long as possible. He might be lacking angelic kindness and mercy, at least the sort of kindness and mercy Aziraphale had always possessed, but he _knew_ what love was, he could feel it in every single cell of his mortal body and permeating every single bit of his very being, someone only knew how and why in the first place.

He'd been there for his angel many times before; he'd given Aziraphale smiles – real, genuine, ones, not his customary ironic scowls – at the shared moments of joy; he'd offered the angel many a glass of wine or hot tea or his so beloved cocoa, depending on the stage of distress he was in; he'd been the solid shoulder to rely on when a very drunk angel wept on it on the day His son had been prosecuted; he'd held Aziraphale's unusually cold and trembling hand standing on the roof of the Westminster Abbey when London, their home, was shelled and bombed during the Blitz; he'd watched the angel's restless and such rare moments of exhausted sleep in some half-ruined house in the war-ridden Paris after Aziraphale had spent several days tending to wounded soldier. Back there, Crowley hadn't been able to come up with any justifiable excuse to stay beside the angel, but none had been needed, as it turned out. Aziraphale's eyes, so huge in his gaunt and totally astounded face, conveyed something which spoke louder than any words possibly could, an unvoiced plea for Crowley to stay. And Crowley had, of course, spending the night sitting beside the bed, keeping his vigil and wishing wistfully that he had the ability to soothe, like Aziraphale did. Just a little would do, just a little to stop his angel from tossing and turning on the mattress in the crumpled tangle of bedsheets. But, to his frustration, all he was capable of doing was watch.

And then, twenty-two years ago, he'd stood with Aziraphale side by side at the Tadfield airbase, defying… well, everyone.

Crowley had been there for him on all those occasions and more, and he was determined to be there for Aziraphale now. All the same, Aziraphale was the Guardian, not him. He was just your mediocre demon, with better taste in clothes and a way greater sense of humour than most Hell's inhabitants possessed, the Original Tempter once, yeah, but still no more than your average demon, a pawn in the great scheme of things. He had no idea how long he could keep the two of them going all by himself. He was afraid it wouldn't be long enough.

He clung closer to Aziraphale, hardly aware that he was doing it, hardly aware he was doing it for support he'd got so used to over those six millennia they'd spent side by side.

"I don't know, Aziraphale," he said finally, sounding more wretched than he wished to disclose. 

He found the angel's hand and he gave it a tight squeeze, feeling so hopelessly inadequate it was disheartening. Aziraphale squeezed back.

Minutes ticked by, and Crowley wondered if the angel would really give sleeping a try, and if he did, whether it would help him in the slightest. If he were still an angel, or even a human, it might, but huh, then there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place. As a demon, though…

Crowley suppressed a shudder – _'Aziraphale'_ and _'demon'_ simply didn't collocate well. The world must have gone completely off its rocker if such things had to happen. Crowley knew for a fact that demonic sleep wasn't – _couldn't_ _be_ – much of a relaxation, but he couldn't bring himself to tell it to Aziraphale. Way too many absolutely dreadful things had already taken place, and he didn't want, didn't feel he had the courage, really, to bring up one more and let Aziraphale know about the nightmares. He simply hoped that, maybe, by some glitch in the program or blind luck or since it wasn't Hell but Earth where they were stationed now, there wouldn't be any. If he could pray, he would, that the angel's sleep would be untroubled. He deserved that much.

******

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *'Girl In Amber' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds


	3. Chapter 3

_I got a feeling I just can't shake_  
_I got a feeling that just won't go away_  
_You've got it, just keep on pushing and, keep on pushing and_  
_Push the sky away.*(c) _

*******

As far as sleeping was concerned, apart from that occasion in the war-devastated France when Crowley had simply got him way too drunk to be able to stay awake, and Aziraphale had been way too exhausted to sober up on his own, the angel finally surrendered and had a go at it for perhaps the first time in centuries not a long while after the quasi-Apocalypse. Crowley had been tempting him to give it a try for ages on end before that, but Aziraphale had always smiled that placid little smile of his which suggested that, while Crowley's idea perhaps wasn't entirely ridiculous to others, he, personally, found it so but was way too polite to say it in his face. He had things to do, he would tell Crowley, almost apologetically and with that irritating smile plastered to his plump lips, and absolutely no time to waste on such mundane and useless thing as sleeping. He didn't really need to sleep, after all, and neither did Crowley, as he would point out, which would irritate the demon even more.

However, when the eleven-year-old Antichrist had stood the entire Great plan on its head with a mere blink of his eyes and, as an afterthought, made them both virtually redundant by liberating them from their respective duties, the number of Aziraphale's _'things to do'_ had seemed to decrease substantially. _No messing with people_ rule which Adam had introduced involved both sides, or rather, involved both sides' _non_participation, so a few months later the angel finally had to admit that, probably, he might have some spare time on his hands. Even so, to all Crowley's proposals and temptations, he'd stubbornly claim that he still could find plenty of things to occupy himself with, even given the absence of the necessity for his eternal vigil over humanity.

Humanity, incidentally, seemed to get along with its existence – as well as with their own wiles and good deeds – perfectly well without anyone's help. Apprehensive at first, both Crowley and Aziraphale obeyed the rule of not messing with people, but, as it often went with humans – who surely had been rubbing off on the two ethereal beings – they finally came to the rather unsurprising conclusion that rules, after all, were there to be broken, or at least bent. So, occasionally, they pretended to forget all about Adam's orders, and Crowley wiled and Aziraphale thwarted. Just a little. Just to keep themselves in shape in case their respective qualities were needed sometime in the future and they happened to be re-employed.

Thus, it was only a couple of years after the failed Apocalypse that Crowley finally managed to persuade his ever-vigilant and insufferably stubborn angel to concede that there really _was_ time for sleeping. There _always_ was time for sleeping, as far as he was concerned, but Aziraphale had yet to understand that.

It cost Crowley a dinner at the Ritz where he had to positively spoil the angel rotten, a bottle of wine and a long evening stroll around London, and then another couple of bottles which they consumed in his flat in Mayfair. Only then, and only after a rather long streak of temptation – or persuasion, as Aziraphale preferred to refer to it, he was still an angel, after all, it wasn't particularly favourable for one's image to be tempted by demons, even if very charming ones – had he finally consented to it. Crowley, delighted, had offered Aziraphale to have his own king-size bed all to himself. He'd even agreed to transform the bed linens into plain white boring cotton instead of his customary black satin.

Surprisingly enough, considering his previous centuries-long mulish resistance, Aziraphale was out like a light wrapped in the cloud of Crowley's fluffy duvet, and Crowley himself spent a rather uncomfortable but no less satisfying because of that night in a chair beside it, determined not to let the angel cheat. Aziraphale decidedly did not look like he was going to, though, and after a while Crowley was fast asleep in his chair as well.

As it turned out after that first attempt, Aziraphale had very little trouble falling asleep, unlike Crowley himself. As soon as the angel had stopped worrying about all the things he could possibly do instead of taking a nap, sleep came to him ever so naturally. As far as Crowley was concerned, what came naturally to him, personally, were nightmares, but he'd never told Aziraphale about them. Instead, he'd find an excuse to sleep over at the bookshop, on that tattered, dusty sofa in the backroom, shrouded in the divine presence that dwelled there and seemed to permeate the very walls of the place. It was deliverance from his haunting dreams, but even when he stayed in his own flat in Mayfair, his sleep couldn't be called really troubled anymore. He suspected it might have been Aziraphale's influence personally on him. His divinity must have been pecking at him for years – centuries, millennia – on end, but just this once, Crowley really had nothing against it.

Later on, in those post-Apocalyptic, rather laid-back, years, Aziraphale took to spending most of his nights indulging in sleep. He would still pore over one book or another until small hours, but closer to the dawn, inevitably, he'd go to that small bedroom tucked upstairs and finally use the ancient bed there for its intended purpose. Smugly and, more often than not, vocally, Crowley would congratulate himself on rubbing off on the angel, too.

*****

Presently, in the disconcerting darkness of the motel room they were shacking up in, Aziraphale did doze off, too, seemingly without much trouble, most certainly out of pure exhaustion rather than desire to sleep. For a while, everything was quiet and peaceful enough, the silence only broken by the measured sequence of the angel's soft inhales and exhales, each breath landing moist and warm and tickling onto the side of Crowley's throat, and a muffled hum of an occasional car driving past outside.

And then nightmares came, just as Crowley had been fearing they would, making the angel thrash and twist in his arms, but that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was having to listen to the hushed, almost strangled sound of an unvoiced scream full of terror dying on Aziraphale's lips. Crowley was afraid he had a vague – or maybe not quite as vague as he wished it to be – idea what exactly the dream was about. It could only be one thing, and that constituted a mind-numbingly dreadful feeling of constant falling, falling from Grace, from _His_ Grace, further and further and further away, down into the bottomless black void until there was no light and no grace and no love left anywhere. The mere thought of it made Crowley shiver, his heart constricting painfully in his chest at the realisation of being unable to alleviate the sheer pain of it for Aziraphale.

After a number of unsuccessful and rather desperate attempts to somehow soothe him, Crowley finally had to pin the angel down to the mattress and simply shake him awake by force. Aziraphale's eyes snapped open, red-rimmed, wet and utterly terrified, but he continued to struggle for a moment or two before understanding finally dawned upon him. A shuddering breath escaped his lips and all struggle seemed to drain out of him all at once.

"It's me, Aziraphale," Crowley murmured, letting his arms wrap around the angel instead of holding him in place. "It's--"

_'--all right,'_ he wanted to say. He wanted to say it was just a silly dream. He wanted to tell Aziraphale that he was there with him and tell him to go back to sleep. And he couldn't quite find enough hypocrisy in himself to do that. Instead, he simply held the angel a little closer, feeling another piece of his heart break, for the first time in his existence as a demon truly loathing his absolute inadequacy when it came to soothing.

"Crowley…"

"I'm so sorry," was all he could say. And he was, too, sorry for so many things. "I should have told you…"

He felt Aziraphale shake his head minutely.

"I know you've been having nightmares for as long as… as I've known you." His voice sounded thick and unusually hoarse. "It's just that I never knew how bad they were."

Crowley winced. Not talking about them didn't necessarily mean Aziraphale was ignorant, he was far too clever not to understand. He couldn't remember the first time he'd ever slept in Aziraphale's vicinity – six millennia were, after all, a long time – but it must have been long before their Arrangement had been formed. It explained why the angel had never sent him away when Crowley had persistently kept falling asleep on him time and time again.

"You learn to live with them," the demon sighed, and it wasn't exactly a lie. One did, indeed, but it was so much easier when there was someone of a celestial persuasion around who didn't mind sharing some of his divine radiance with the damned. "Yeah, they are bad in the beginning but it just…" Crowley searched for the word, a less atrocious word, a more humane one, if possible. "It ebbs somewhat, with the course of time."

At least he dearly wished to hope so. It had been that way for him, but then again, he'd always had Aziraphale by his side, soothing and kind and ever so _loving, _always so loving.

"But no matter how bad it gets, Aziraphale, just remember that I'm here, okay? All of it might go to hell in a handbasket, and I'll stay right here with you."

Aziraphale nodded, his fluffy curls tickling Crowley's lips and nose. His arms wove themselves around the demon's middle holding on to him as if he was his last hope of salvation.

"Tell me what it was like for you, will you?" he murmured. "You never did, and I never asked even though I probably should have."

Crowley sighed. There was a reason for his silence on the topic, of course. The less he thought about his Fall, the easier it was to live with, but he wasn't going to steer clear of it now – he owed Aziraphale that much. He owed him the knowledge, if nothing else. So, although reluctantly and with many pauses at first, Crowley did tell him, starting from what had been before the Garden where they'd first met each other, Crawly the snake demon and Aziraphale the Guardian of the Eastern Gate.

*****

It might not even have been their first meeting – they might have been acquainted with each other before, of course – but Crowley had no way of knowing it now. The memories, even though technically still there in his head, seemed hazy and all jumbled up like pieces of an old frayed and faded jigsaw. The only true recollection he had about Heaven – and that one was more intrinsic knowledge of the fact rather than a real memory of something he'd once been a part of – was the constant warm glow of inexplicable, all-encompassing love, and at the very beginning it only tended to make him so much more aware of his own _lovelessness_. That lovelessness was what hurt most. He hadn't Fallen in the true sense of the word, he'd indeed sauntered vaguely downwards as he loved to claim. What he'd always failed to mention was that he had barely been aware of what exactly he was doing and where that sloping path was leading him. Many of his brothers fought, killing each other, openly shunning their Father, defying Him and all that was Him, and what Crowley did was merely question the reasonability of it all, the entire Plan if there even was such thing as a Plan. Only upon reaching the bottom of the metaphysical realm of the Down Below had he realised with horror what exactly had happened, but by then it was already too late. Obviously, he couldn't _un_-question anything back to normal, and Hell was where he had to be stuck in from then on writhing in pain.

And that was when the hunger struck. Crowley hadn't known hunger before, and even afterwards, after he'd have known many faces of it, that initial experience would forever remain what he'd look back on with utter, gut-twisting, terror. There was want. There was craving, the desperateness of which was driving him insane. It felt like he spent a thousand equivalents of what later would be measured in days and nights in the darkness, doing nothing but wanting, and wanting, and wanting, wanting something he was now forever deprived of; and the faint recollections, more tastes and impressions than anything else, of the radiance, peace and serenity that he still seemed to possess did nothing but torture him. Then nightmares came, and soon his mouth was bleeding, too – because no one Down There was allowed to as much as think about the Love lost, let alone speak of it, and remain unpunished. The bleeding evolved into anger, then into hatred, and the mixture burnt him from the inside worse than those pits of fire Hell seemed to have in abundance ever could. Just like the rest of the Fallen, Crowley _wanted_ only one thing, and then he hated it because he could never get that Love back; he wanted more and more, hating everything; and there were lots of them Down Below – legions – spitting hatred around like venom.

It was a deliverance of sorts when he, for some unfathomable reason, was chosen to be the one to try and trick the humanity into Falling from His Grace, too. Once out of Hell, Crowley found out he was able to breathe again. He spent a while just slithering in the proximity of the Garden, because, strange as it was since it should have perhaps made him even more spiteful and sore, it had a directly opposite, inexplicably soothing, effect on him. It was good. The Garden with all its lush green leaves and fragrant blossoms and ripe fruits was good. The sunshine on his scales felt good. The gentle breeze and the constant sequence of days and nights were good, too. And then he met an angel. The angel was insufferably divine and surprisingly easy to tolerate. And then, for the demon Crawly who'd forgotten his true name and most of his previous life everything got even better.

*****

Crowley's eyes glazed over the sharp dark outlines of the blinds on the windows against the muddy grey, stormy sky outside, as he forced words to leave his mouth and form sentences. He could feel them acquire shape and then roll reluctantly across the plain of his tongue but refusing to drop off its tip until he practically spat them out. And even then, his voice sounded flat and distant, as if some other narrator took initiative and left him listening to the story of his own existence.

He didn't dare lock his eyes with Aziraphale's. He was afraid he'd falter and… And he didn't know what then, but he knew he had no right to falter now. So he went on through the apple tree and Eden and the humanity and all the rest of it all with feigned patience, silently wondering whether Aziraphale knew what a hell of a lot of self-control that patience cost him. And then there was a warm hand on his hip, and it squeezed, gently but firmly, and he'd be blessed if he didn't know what that gesture meant. There had been plenty of them over the six millennia that he and Aziraphale had been acquainted, more than enough for him to finally start recognising them for what they were, for signs of care and concern and compassion his angel had always had for him, and in spite of everything that had happened earlier that evening, it managed to put a small smile onto Crowley's lips.

"And you know, angel," he said after a pause, speaking into the top of Aziraphale's head, "that time I first met you in Eden, it was the end of me as a decent demon." His grin got wider, even if still being wistful. "I've been hooked on you from day one, hopelessly. I think I didn't quite understand it back then, and I wouldn't _want_ to understand it for another couple of millennia, but you… you know, you had that _lovingness_ about you. It was always there, constantly radiating off you. It was like a small taste of Heaven every time I met you, and it hurt in the beginning, yeah, but it hurt in a good way and it was addictive. I _needed_ you in my life, I couldn't help it and I sincerely hated you for doing that to me. The nightmares retreated when you were around, and that was already enough to drive me obsessed. So I kept following you all the time. You went to China, I went to China. You were seen in Constantinople, I was there within a few days."

"And I thought, just what a _nuisance_ of a demon you were," Aziraphale murmured against Crowley's chest, quietly, and the _'nuisance of a demon'_ in question felt an utterly inappropriate for the present circumstances smug smile tug at the corners of his own mouth. "You used to be such an inconvenience, my dear."

"No rest for the wicked," Crowley huffed. "Discorporating you, now _that_ was an inconvenience. It demanded waiting for you while you were catching up on some stupid stuff with your people Upstairs while they were issuing you a new body, and things tended to get so much worse without you. So I had to come up with the Arrangement just so that I had an excuse to bump into you on the premise of work. It'd make things more convenient for me, I reckoned, and it was another couple of hundreds of years before I dared to admit it to myself that it wasn't _only_ convenient, that you _actually_ were worth knowing. A bit of a bastard and all, you know."

The hand on his hip gave it another squeeze.

"You were rubbing off on me, my dear," Aziraphale said.

"Rubbish!" Crowley snorted in reply. "You've been like that right from the start. A bit of a rebel, you know. Gave your bloody sword away, to humans, of all people, huh? The stubborn, insufferable, annoying, righteous kind of rebel with some heavenly after-taste. Told you I was doomed the day I met you. And there has never been a day when I regretted it, Aziraphale."  
  
Aziraphale's soft, moist lips left a feathery brush against the base of Crowley's throat. The demon shivered, closed his eyes, swallowed, opened them again. Held his angel closer. He'd told the truth, all right, he depended on Aziraphale, always had, and that technically let Aziraphale do to him whatever he pleased. If he told him to sprinkle himself with Holy water, Crowley most probably would. He was aware that it definitely was _not_ normal demonic behaviour but there didn't seem to be anything at all he could do about it. He was Hell's very own version of a junkie, with the only difference being that the drug he was hooked on was actually a _good_ one.

"I understood that I _trusted_ you when you'd managed to entice me into that stupid single combat in Egypt," Crowley said quietly. "When His son was crucified, I found out I actually _cared_ about you; I knew _wanted_ you when the Above found you a bloody wife, and, angel, I swear, no creature on this blasted planet has ever known what _true_ _jealousy_ is more than I did then; and by the time plague had ebbed away in London, I was done with, I knew I was so helplessly _in love_ with you it hurt. Literally."

"For so long, my dear…" the angel whispered in the now dissipating semi-darkness, and for a moment all the demon could see in his face was sorrow so profound it hurt him, too, on some very deep level.

"I thought time belonged to us," he replied and shrugged, smirking bitterly as he remembered that excuse for the end of the world which had taken place twenty-two years prior.

They'd been inexplicably close to losing it all back then, and they were tittering on the very edge of doing the same once again. It was funny how time kept proving to them that it didn't particularly care about belonging to anybody.

That August of 1991, when he'd stood shoulder to shoulder with Aziraphale, that blasted tyre iron clutched in his sweaty hand, it hadn't _really_ seemed that anything at all in this world belonged to them, let alone their time. He also remembered how he'd started to nurse a meek semblance of hope just after all the commotion had settled down a little, that very first morning after the world hadn't ended, when he'd woken up in his own bedroom to the sight of Aziraphale sitting on the floor next to his bed, his face tired and pallid but oddly radiant, his hair a halo of curls illuminated by the morning sun. His hope was that maybe, just maybe, one day something would possibly change for at least one of them so that they could take their long-lasting Arrangement to a wholly new level. Or maybe that one day they would simply stop caring.

What Crowley remembered next – against his will – was how blood, so red and so decidedly human, joined the trickles of Holy water, pooling in between the cobblestones of the pavement. Well, something had changed for one of them, indeed.

"I really thought there was no need to hurry after that stupid flopped Apocalypse, Aziraphale," he murmured, a bit stunned. "Man, have I _ever_ been this wrong?" 

Aziraphale didn't immediately answer, but his fingertips resumed their minute motions over Crowley's trousers-clad hip.

"I should have known earlier," he finally sighed. "I _really_ should have. I remember you being exceptionally resentful and sulking after that business…" Aziraphale halted for a brief moment, then sighed and continued, "after that job they had assigned to me back in Kiew in 10th century, and I remember I found your reaction to it more than a bit odd, but… well, mainly because I reasoned there was absolutely no motive for you to behave that way. I should have probably seen that there was a motive but… Heaven's arrogance tends to rub off on you even if you do not reside there on a permanent basis, and it was arrogant of me to draw conclusions about you based on… well, on what I had been told about Hell and its inhabitants by my people."

"When did you know?" Crowley asked quietly.

"About you loving me or me loving you?"

"Both," Crowley smiled softly. It was so exceptionally unusual be talking about love with Aziraphale, at last, after all those protracted hundreds of years of feeling desperate and lovelorn.

"Up until a while back I didn't even know demons could love, and I'm truly ashamed of myself, Crowley, I should have been able to tell. I think I did feel it, just never… never took it for what it really was, and I think it was only after the Apocalypse that I realised how wrong I had been. As to myself," he went on, "I… during the plague in 1625, I was convinced you were elsewhere, away from the pandemic doing something, well, your demonic thing, and then you just barged in on me in the midst of the outbreak. I thought you were delirious, speaking about those children, and then, afterwards, I checked the records and… they gave me commendation for it, Crowley…" Aziraphale sighed, his fingers crumpling the fabric of the demon's trousers in a fist. "I tried to locate you, to at least say thank you, and you were just nowhere to be found for… how long was it? almost a century? I missed you so awfully… and then after their Great plan went south, I thought we were finally left alone, after all, I thought we could let it all unfold without rushing things. I should have seen it earlier…"

"It might not have changed anything, angel," Crowley sighed, even though he, too, had a nagging thought what could have been if… it was useless, of course. "And I didn't quite expect to fall for you, mind. If you'd known earlier, it's possible I'd have been utterly mortified. It took me ages – and I mean, _ages_, since the Plague to come to terms with what I felt for you. That it wasn't only because of the benefit of your angelic influence, scaring my nightmares away and all. I refused to believe in it, that I actually could be capable of _loving_ you, for years. So I avoided you. And then I figured out the only way to actually check whether I was just being paranoid about it all or if I indeed was a total screw-up of a demon," Crowley fell silent for a moment and then let out a huff. "I simply said it out loud, and what do you think happened? _Voila!_ bled like a pig, and so, of course, it was obvious. I couldn't even get drunk properly afterwards because it stung like a bitch and wouldn't heal. So I just went to sleep for a century or so."

Aziraphale just kept looking at him, but there was so much anguish in his gaze that something clutched at Crowley's throat again.

"It's all right you didn't figure it out earlier, angel," he murmured, quietly. "_I_ wasn't prepared to deal with it. So that would have put quite a damper on things, don't you think?"

"Possibly," Aziraphale conceded with a sigh. "But there's quite a damper on things as it is."

"We'll work it out," Crowley said simply even though he could see absolutely nothing simple about the current circumstances.

Aziraphale only nodded in reply. They remained silent for a while; two lone souls snuggled close together under a blanket in a cramped motel room in the middle of English countryside. The world went on around them, with occasional noises breaking the stillness of the night. Leaves rustled in the light summer breeze outside. A loose floorboard creaked somewhere. A dog whined softly and then got quiet again. Crowley tried to hear them all and keep on guard.

The night went on around them, quiet and undisturbed. It felt like the longest one Crowley had ever had to live through.

*******

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *'Push the Sky Away' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds


	4. Chapter 4

_I have no abiding memory_  
_ No awakening, no flaming dart_  
_ No word of consolation_  
_ No arrow through my heart_  
_ Only a feeble notion_  
_ A glimmer from afar_  
_ That I cling to with my fingers_  
_ As we go spinning wildly through the stars_

_And I'm full of love_  
_ And I'm full of wonder_  
_ And I'm full of love_  
_ And I'm falling under_  
_ Your spell.*©_

** ******

_Egypt, around 3000 BC_

The night was hanging still and fragrant around one of the gardens on the bank of the Nile, the perfect serenity being broken by the only artificial sound around, that of metal hitting metal.

Crowley was in the middle of a very badly coordinated lunge with a sword when an unexpected thought stroke him with the suddenness of a slap in the face, and taking into consideration his very drunken condition which already undermined his coordination significantly, he made a dreadfully clumsy move missing Aziraphale altogether and, under his own momentum, nearly stumbled down face first into the soft grass.

"Fuck'sssssake!" the demon hissed in frustration.

"Oh boy," Aziraphale muttered from somewhere to his left, his voice just a tad slurring but still articulate enough to express the extent of his being decidedly _not_ impressed with Crowley's swordsmanship. "I told you the warriors of Heaven are a step ahead at the skill of wielding a sword!"

"That is, if they don't give it away firssst," Crowley shot back, rather disconcertedly. "'m jussst too drunk for thisss. We should repeat the entire blasssted thing ssober, angel. Thisss doesn't count!"

He threw his sword dejectedly onto the ground, its fall cushioned by the carpet of emerald grass.

The thing was, well, Aziraphale might have been just right, at least as far as the angel himself was concerned. Crowley could perfectly well remember him wield the Flaming sword back before he'd flopped his job of the Guarding of Eden, so he had no intention whatsoever of deluding himself into believing that he was a match for Aziraphale, with regard to swordsmanship if not else. This entire contest happened for the sole reason of Crowley not being able to skip the chance of annoying the insufferable righteous fool. If anything, it was in his job description to thwart Heaven's plans, and if irritating his counterpart out of his mind was all he could do, so be it, he had jumped at the chance readily enough. That was how they'd ended up under the cover of date palms and sycamores, wielding swords.

What made Crowley fail his blow so spectacularly wasn't exactly the fact that he was drunk. Inebriation had something to do with it, of course, but not as much as he wanted Aziraphale to believe. After all, he could actually sober up any moment should he have a wish to do so. On the contrary, it was precisely that, the very realization that he was pisspot drunk along with the fact that he actually allowed himself to get that drunk in the first place in the company of his, well, technically sworn enemy, because this was exactly what Aziraphale was to him. It was true, they hadn't had anything even vaguely resembling a fight for quite a while, for several centuries give or take, and yes, Aziraphale did persistently stick to his mild manners and being annoyingly divine and courteous, which, combined with his fair curls and piercing blue eyes, didn't make him seem particularly threatening, but Crowley, of course, should – and did, in fact – know better than to trust him as far as he could throw him.

Which, as the demon so suddenly realised, was precisely the issue.

Here he was, drunken to the extent that it effectively robbed him of a good part of his natural grace and coordination, engaging in the most stupid thing a decent demon could probably be with, of all people, an angel – in a sword fight. The said angel was currently holding a heavy and potentially deadly weapon in his divinely impeccable hands, and Crowley remarked silently – with a churning feeling in his stomach – that Aziraphale could possibly kill him on the spot should he have any inclination to do so. It wasn't even about the inconvenient discorporation – they'd been through it before, so, annoying as it was, it wasn’t Crowley's greatest concern. What was was that Aziraphale, being an angel and all that, could perhaps charge his weapon of choice with enough divinity to obliterate Crowley in the blink of an eye. All he needed to do was probably think of some celestial stuff and stick his blasted sword right through Crowley's middle, which he could do easily enough given his skill at swordsmanship, and that'd be it.

Crowley shuddered. He wasn't particularly fond of the idea.

That said, though, with Aziraphale being an angel, the stuffy bastard could perhaps smite him any moment he wished, without any sword fights involved, yet he had never actually attempted to do so. They'd been hanging around each other for quite a while now, and nothing more aggressive than Aziraphale's righteous blabbering directed his way had ever taken place, and even that was subsequently subdued over a jar of something strong.

With a shiver and a wince, Crowley made himself sober up completely, genuinely distressed by the direction his thoughts were taking. It didn't help much, though, as sobriety only made everything blatantly obvious, and now as he watched the angel, divine quirky curls and piercing blue eyes and all, with a sword in his hand lowered now, looking at him with an increasingly puzzled expression plastered to his face, Crowley understood one frightening truth.

He wasn't really intimidated by Aziraphale's presence – hadn't been for hundreds of years, really; he wasn't disturbed by the fact that his celestial adversary had all the ability in the world to erase him off the face of the Earth forever; he didn't really feel concerned about being plastered in the angel's presence – together with the angel, actually – almost deliberately letting himself be vulnerable around him. None of those troubled him for one sole reason, and it was, as Crowley had just discovered, that he _trusted_ Aziraphale. There hadn't been any agreement devised between the two of them yet, but this was as good an excuse as any to probably create one because this particular angel was just enough of a bastard to match Crowley's standards.

"Crowley," the said angel meanwhile inquired, currently sounding cautious and much less drunk that he'd been just a few moments ago. "Are you quite all right, my dear?"

The demon actually opened his mouth to reply, but that ridiculous _'dear'_ made him huff and shake his head instead. You just couldn't be apprehensive of someone with Aziraphale's manners, one who infuriatingly persisted in calling you a _dear_ even though you were a demon, could you?

"I am, yes, angel," Crowley sighed. "Actually, I seem to have come up with a brilliant proposal of sorts, and if you care to hear what it is, I suggest we give up on this stupid fighting which doesn't prove anything to anyone--"

"I do beg to differ, my dear, as--"

"—as _nothing_, Aziraphale," Crowley interrupted him with a good-natured smirk and a wave of his hand, "so how about we get back to my place and discuss the potential mutual benefits of what I've just thought of."

Azirapahle raised both of his eyebrows, but then shrugged his shoulders and obediently disposed of both the sword in his hand and the one Crowley had used, conscientiously miracling them back to the armoury he had summoned them from in the first place.

"If you insist," the angel responded, sounding genuinely intrigued, "let's go."

That night, the Arrangement which would be valid for millennia from then on came into existence. It required some heated debates, wine, a few burnt candles, lots of papyrus, more wine and a plate of sun-dried dates devoured solely by Aziraphale, and by the end of the negotiation Crowley was feeling so utterly frazzled he could think of nothing but closing his heavy eyelids and floating off on the waves of sleep, preferably a dreamless one. He did just that, for the first time over his and Aziraphale's acquaintance being perfectly certain that his technical nemesis wasn't a nemesis at all, but rather the only other supernatural entity beside himself he could trust. He had never before slept more soundly than on that night, knowing on some level of his consciousness that he was perfectly safe having Aziraphale around. It was a refreshingly nice feeling, for a change.

*****

_Jerusalem, 33 AD_

"I don't know if it'll make you feel any better about this entire folly," Crowley sighed, his eyes still fixed on the distant crosses erected on the Mount Golgotha, "but I _do not_ understand any of this either."

They were standing in the spacious hall, between the columns of a Roman temple, shoulder to shoulder, and for the past half an hour watching the crosses being mounted. Crowley was grateful they were not close enough to hear the convicted scream as they surely were, one of the unfortunate victims being the son of God himself. Aziraphale's face was ashen and looked damp with sweat, his light curls sticking to his forehead and temples. His mouth was set in a thin, composed line, but his blue eyes revealed an entire set of emotions – wrath and sympathy and helplessness and confusion – all tumbled together into an expression which was possibly the closest to utter disbelief.

Jesus's crucifixion shouldn't have come as a surprise to either of them – it was simply one of the things which had been prophesised and, thus, destined to happen, just like the Apocalypse was to take place one day in the future. It had been set in words, and never mind that none seemed to know where exactly those words had been written down. No one ever asked for their opinions because their opinions did not matter in the great scheme of things. And still they both had them. Crowley had paid for it dearly a few millennia back, in fact.

He had given up on trying to understand any part of the Ineffable plan long ago. The Ineffable plan was, as a matter of fact, so ineffable that these days it served as an extremely ineffable excuse for the big guys from both Up- and Downstairs to run their business the way they wanted to run it. Among the two of them, an angel and a demon stationed on earth as field agents, it could be discussed on and on without either of them seemingly coming to any conclusion about what it all meant. In other words, the Ineffable plan was a perfect polemic ground for evenings and nights they spent in each other's drunken company. If all agreed that _His_ own son must be crucified – well and good, who was he to start having any ideas? What Crowley did find rather irksome was the bloodlust with which humans had got down to business. It wasn't only today; they had always been able to shock him into being completely lost for words. Crowley had seen them doing good things which he couldn't comprehend, but when they decided to be bad – well, something worse than Hell broke loose.

Aziraphale had always known about this plan, too, of course; not the Ineffable one but the utterly atrocious one involving God's son. However, whereas Crowley, a cold-blooded realist by nature, had believed in it right from the start, the angel seemed to be coming to grips with it only now, and judging by the looks of him, he wasn't doing a particularly good job out of it. Deep inside of him, he must have nursed a hope that something neither of them knew about would happen to prevent the execution. It had not, of course, and as Aziraphale watched the crosses and the grey masses of people surrounding them, all his contradictory emotions were showing on his face so clearly as if he were thinking out loud.

Which, as far as Crowley was concerned, wasn't good. No, it wasn't good at all, because confusion raised questions, and questioning wasn't something an angel should be occupying his mind with. Who if not Crowley himself would know it so bloody well?

He gave the angel a long look, not liking what he saw a tiny bit. There was a crease between Aziraphale's fair eyebrows; the kind of crease which meant he wasn't only going to start thinking up questions but that he was going to _voice_ them, too. Which was absolutely unacceptable. Something had to be done about it immediately.

Cautiously, Crowley touched the angel's _simlāh_-clad shoulder, hoping to be able to derail the train of his thought, or at least to distract him from the gory scene happening on Golgotha. Aziraphale blinked, which at first gave Crowley some hope of success, but it was rather short-lived as a moment later Aziraphale shook his head incredulously, eyes still fixed on the distant hill with crosses on it, and – bless the insufferable fool – opened his mouth.

"I--" he started, but it was all he was allowed to articulate.

"Shut up," Crowley hissed, his hand tightening its hold on the angel's shoulder in what he hoped would be perceived as a warning.

Aziraphale's eyes darted to his, finally, the confusion in them now directed straight at the demon. His words must have sounded angry – and rightly so because, _blessit_, he was angry! He was positively _livid_ with the blasted angel! What else could he be when this divine idiot suddenly got _ideas_, dangerous ideas, which could send him tumbling down all the way to where Crowley himself stood in the great system of the Universe, which was, namely, straight to Hell?!

Aziraphale kept staring at him, silently, looking so taken aback and so scandalised Crowley had a momentary urge to give him a friendly slap in the face as a reminder of who and where he bloody was.

"I just wanted to say that I don't--" the angel tried again and was once again interrupted, rather unceremoniously at that.

"And I've just told you to shut it," Crowley snapped, his hand now squeezing the angel's shoulder so tightly it was sure to leave bruises.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said, obviously doing his best to sound stern yet patient. "You're hurting my shoulder."

"I'm gonna hurt both of them if you don't shut your mouth and _think_ before you start saying anything else!" Crowley almost snarled as he turned and, true to his word, grabbed Aziraphale by both shoulders, giving him a rough shake. This was the closest thing to a fistfight they'd had since long before the Arrangement.

His heart was suddenly beating hard in his very throat. Aziraphale seemed to be compromised between smiting him right on the spot and bursting into tears. His eyes were already brimming, Crowley saw, two cerulean blue oceans filled with grief, confusion, disbelief and reproach. With a heavy sigh, the demon relaxed the grip of his fingers but let his hands remain on Aziraphale's shoulders nonetheless. They were bewilderingly warm beneath his perpetually cool fingers.

"Look," he said, making an effort to make his voice sound calm and reasonable. "I'm sorry--"

"You'd better be," Aziraphale snapped, testy and tearful.

"--but what I meant is, do _not_, Aziraphale."

"Do _not_? Do not _what_? Could you be a bit more specific?"

"Yes. _Do_ _not_ _question,_ for Sssomeone's sake!"

"Question _what_?" This time, Aziraphale sounded truly exasperated and only a touch confused.

"_Anything_. Any of what's happening now. I know you don't approve of the whole thing, but no one, _blessit,_ cares if you do or don't, Aziraphale. So don't you bloody dare start questioning this thrice-fucked-up Ineffable plan. It's not your fucking business, and having an opinion on His blasted intentions is not in your job description. Don't you dare start _doubting_. Are you following me?"

Slowly, the remains of reproach and anger drained from the angel's expression, at least anger and confusion which were directed at Crowley personally, as what the demon hoped was understanding started to dawn upon Aziraphale. He could, of course, explain the entire thing in more simple terms; terms like, if one worked for the guy Up Above and then started entertaining serious doubts on their employer's policy, one could very easily find oneself in Hell, to one's great surprise. That, however, wasn't a good enough explanation, Crowley suspected, because it would oblige him to further explain exactly how it concerned him personally, and then he would have to admit that he simply did not want one insufferable angel to join the host of Hell and turn into an insufferable demon. Hell was already insufferable enough as it was, without Aziraphale's contribution, thank you very much. Or so Crowley preferred to think, anyway.

Aziraphale remained in a rather stunned kind of silence for a while longer, Crowley still holding him by the shoulders. When he did start speaking, though, it was the demon's turn to be taken completely by surprise.

"Why does it make you so _angry_, Crowley?" he asked.

"Why—" Crowley started but trailed off to a sputtering halt.

He frowned momentarily, looked back into Aziraphale's blue eyes and rolled his own in a very skilfully played fit of exasperation. But really, what else could he do? Tell the angel that he _cared_, for real? He couldn't even admit it to himself, for someone's sake!

"This is _ridiculous_!" he muttered indignantly and turned abruptly on his heels, striding decisively away.

Aziraphale didn't go after him immediately – and at that very moment, Crowley didn't particularly mind if he would or would not. The angel stood there among the great marble columns all alone, apparently still mulling over what he'd heard, but when Crowley had reached the stairs leading down from the temple and into the deserted city streets – most of its population was gathered at the scene of that exceptionally entertaining execution, apparently – he heard the hurried footsteps of sandaled feet running down the steps behind him. He did not stop. If anything, he only quickened his pace.

"Where are you going?" the angel asked once he'd caught up with him, a bit out of breath and sounding more than a bit desperate. "Crowley!"

"To get pissed," Crowley muttered. "You're welcome to join but if you start that stupid talk again, I swear I'll have to discorporate you on the spot, Arrangement or no Arrangement. And you'll probably thank me later, you blithering idiot."

"Why, I think I could thank you already, my dear," Aziraphale murmured so quietly Crowley could barely hear his words behind the soft shuffling of their sandals over the pavement. He did hear it, though, and every cell in his body screamed to answer with something sarcastic.

Because he _couldn't_ care. Demons generally did not, did they?

"Just pay for the wine," Crowley finally huffed, humourlessly, shook his head and strode purposefully on.

*****

_Constantinople, 10th century AD_

It was the only time Crowley felt really – _truly_ really – angry with Aziraphale. He used to think he'd been angry before, on plenty of occasions which involved his inconvenient discorporations every now and again or occasional thwarting of his meticulously elaborated plans. And who wouldn't be, in his shoes? Getting a new body was a tedious process and involved an unforgivable shitload of paperwork, and besides, Crowley had never been keen on visiting the Downstairs whilst he had all the time in the world to spend among humans, causing mischief, terrorising plants and tarnishing souls; sometimes getting a little too drunk in the company of a not overly virtuous angel. Being perpetually killed tended to get on one's nerves, so, of course, he _thought_ he knew what true anger was.

But never as profound as the kind he was feeling now. 

At the moment it seemed like all the demons of Hell – possibly led by the Morningstar himself – raged inside his corporeal form, driving him delirious and making him hiss and clench his fists so hard his nails dug into the skin of his palms. He'd already drawn blood more than once. But it wasn't _only_ anger, Crowley suspected with genuine dismay. There was something worse to it, too. He didn't really _want_ to even start to suspect anything of this sort, but the suspicion had sneaked its way into his head seemingly without his consent as suspicions were prone to doing.

Anger – at least as far as Crowley knew and understood it – never hurt, not him anyway. He was supposed to feel it. It burnt inside of him and made him want to cause trouble all over the place. It made him want to corrupt anyone within his reach, and do it without style, crudely, corruption for the sake of corruption rather than for the devious kind of pleasure he tended to derive from the process itself. As far as the angel was concerned, sometimes Crowley's genuine anger simply made him want to repeatedly stab Aziraphale with something sharp, especially in the old, pre-Arrangement, days. He hadn't actually stabbed him with anything in what seemed like more than a lifetime.

This time, however, his anger hurt like a motherfucker. It felt as if there were something in his gut, twisting and turning restlessly, causing that dull, nagging ache right in the very middle of him. It was making him nauseous. At the times when Crowley didn't want to destroy something, all he wished for – and that was even more frustrating – was curl into a ball, pull his knees to his chin and shut his eyes tight. It was making him want to get so deadly drunk that he would finally stop comprehending anything at all and all those bloody suspicions would finally leave him be.

In Constantinople, the proprietor of the inn where Crowley had been staying for the past few days and where he had been getting inhumanly – _indemonly_, really – sloshed, called on him early in the morning and, instead of finding a handsome young man who had good manners and a sharp, ironic smile, he actually encountered a pitiful, drunken, half-dressed heap of a human, lying twisted into a rather intricate shape on the bed. He must have quite literally saturated himself with wine, the proprietor reckoned, judging by the stale sour stench in the room and an impressive number of empty clay jars that lay scattered all over the floor. The proprietor cursed – partly because of the unexpectedly cloying odour, partly because he was almost sure that the once good-looking young man had apparently died on him in his very inn; and, for God's sake, didn't he already have enough problems without a corpse on his hands. Doing his best not to breathe too deeply, he entered the room. 

The young man had looked very convincingly dead from the distance. Once the proprietor got closer, though, it turned out he was still breathing. Ever so lightly, yes, but he did nonetheless, his pale hairless chest rising and falling in regular intervals. And then the young man scared the living daylight out of the poor old man when he all of a sudden started to mutter something about blasted stupid angels, about no sense of decency and laying with shameless human women and about sheer audacity thereof. The proprietor, once his heart rate had more or less got back to normal, assumed that the young man must have drunk himself into delirium – which was very close to the truth, for Crowley was _deliriously_ outraged even while being barely conscious.

The proprietor was in the midst of contemplating whether he should be calling for a doctor or a grave digger when the young man woke up.

"Wine," he slurred into the pillow.

He hadn't opened his eyes, but his hand lifted itself off the bed and remained hovering a few inches above it, his finger pointing straight at the proprietor. It was trembling rather badly.

"Young master, if I may, I'd suggest that you might do better with a breath of fresh air rather than with wine right now?" he asked uncertainly, trying not to breathe too deeply at the same time.

It didn't work out very well, making the man gasp, draw in a lungful of the acrid air and then cough. He wouldn't really mind to earn more, of course – the young guest had paid him generously – and would gladly sell him as much wine as he asked for, but the thought of him dying here in his very inn from alcohol intoxication didn't seem particularly fascinating.

The formerly good-looking young man made a strange sound which, oddly, resembled a hiss disturbingly well. His hand with the pointing finger shook in what he apparently meant as a menacing manner. It didn't really look that way, but the proprietor still stepped back, warily.

"Wine," the young man hissed again. "Wine, you bassstard, if your sssodding ssoul ssstill matters to you."

The proprietor opened his mouth to tell the insolent drunk that he wasn't going to put up with being insulted in his own house, but – luckily for the proprietor himself – not a single sound left it as the next moment one of the young man's eyes opened and shot him such a murderous glance that, with a strangled gasp, the poor man stumbled back and out of the room and straight to the wine cellar, not daring disobey.

His mind refused to believe in what his eyes were telling him they'd seen. Humans did not have yellow eyes, and their pupils were decidedly _not_ slits. The man was quite strange and eccentric indeed, all right, but… but… unless he was… but the proprietor's mind simply would not tolerate any further speculation. He must have imagined things.

He did bring the wine. He left the jar beside Crowley's bed and was gone in the blink of an eye. He hadn't dared a single glance in his strange guest's direction lest he start seeing horns and scales and clove hooves all over the place. Blissfully unaware of it, Crowley had managed to do a good thing – the proprietor would quit drinking for the rest of his life. Crowley himself would definitely not. It hurt less that way. Not much less, but one had to work with what he had.

The root of the problem was, of course, Aziraphale. Almost all Crowley's problems came down to two things – either Hell, or Aziraphale. This time, to be more precise, the problem was Aziraphale who had – Crowley could hardly comprehend how it could have possibly happened – who had found himself a… a _what_? A wife? A mistress? A whore? A lover? What should he call her? Most of all, he thought with disgust, he'd prefer not to have to call her anything. He'd prefer she hadn't happened to Aziraphale in the first place.

They hadn't seen each other for quite a while, but that was the normal order of things for them at the time. When one wanted a company, he'd track the other down. More often than not, Crowley would be the first to do it. Not because he craved the angel's presence per se but because it worked like a cure for all his troubled thoughts and his recurring nightmares. On second thought, though – and he'd started to realise it only recently – yes, maybe he _did_ crave Aziraphale's company for the sake of Aziraphale's company. They'd been stuck here together for so long it wouldn't really be a bad thing to say that they'd finally become each other's only friend, a kindred spirit of sorts.

So much more painful the disappointment had turned out to be.

Of all places, Crowley had found his associate in the midst of still mainly pagan Kievan Rus. Living in some g--…_someone_-forsaken village. Pretending to be one of the dwellers. Doing ploughing and every kind of hard labour imaginable every day. But that hadn't been all of it. It wouldn't have been so bad, really, no, it wouldn't have been bad at all – if Aziraphale's bosses demanded his presence in the newly forming state, well, it was just fine by Crowley, it was in their job descriptions, after all, as well as not interfering with each other's business was in their very own Arrangement. What had been particularly bad was that Aziraphale wasn't living there alone. He'd been living there with, someone forgive him, a _woman_. A perfectly human one, made of flesh and blood, young and ripe and disturbingly good-looking. 

"That's how Heaven ensures it'll get its share of souls these days, huh?" Crowley had sneered by way of greeting and shot his amber eyes towards the fair-haired woman – barely older than a girl, actually – who was doing some washing by the porch of a squat timber house.

He didn't even need to ask Aziraphale who exactly she was to him – for some reason, everything about this place and the people – well, one human and one being of celestial persuasion – that lived here had the air of perfectly happy domestic routine and, ridiculously enough, affection. Crowley might not be a celestial being, but he was no fool, and he could tell love when he saw it. The woman positively radiated it, so much so it made Crowley's skin itch so much he wanted to hiss. The angel – _his_ angel, bless it – was no better, to his utter dismay. He'd always been radiating love, of course, and that was one of the things that had been drawing to him the poor sod of a demon that Crowley was, but this time it was a more specific kind of love. It was somehow directed at this woman, and Crowley loathed her on the spot. The awkward and somewhat abashed manner in which the angel conducted himself when he saw Crowley didn't help in making the matters any better, as far as the demon was concerned.

The house stood aloof from the rest of the village, which spared them any prying glances, thanks someone for small mercies. They were in Aziraphale's yard, or whatever it was called here, and Aziraphale, after giving Crowley a one third apologetic, two thirds displeased look, took him by the elbow and led him briskly behind the house. Not even _inside_ the house, Crowley would think later, when the initial shock of what he'd seen had let go a little. Meanwhile, he simply wasn't quite capable of coherent thinking. He was _furious_.

The woman was somehow a key figure in Heaven's future plans, Aziraphale said. He didn't know what kind of a key figure she was and what she was supposed to do and how the Up Above were planning to use her or her immortal soul, he hadn't been told any specifics, you see, but he'd been told in so many words that he was to stay beside her no matter what and keep her from coming to any harm or from interfering with anything – what exactly anything was he hadn't been told, either. Which would be best accomplished, his bosses had told Aziraphale, by making her his wife, in the true sense of the word, and actually hadn't as much encouraged him to do so as plainly ordered. Well, and what could he have done? He obviously couldn't disobey his orders, right? And besides, the girl was bright and kind, and…

Aziraphale trailed off then, blushing a little, which, complemented by his fair locks and icy-blue eyes, actually suited him so damn well Crowley had an urge to punch the bastard square in the face. He'd better be on his way back, Aziraphale had told the demon after a somewhat awkward pause. They'd catch up on everything soon, he said. That's a dear boy. No, no way they could catch up right now, terribly sorry. Important business, absolutely no messing it about.

"Sssince when have the pleasures of the flesh become Heaven's important businesss, huh?" Crowley hissed back over his shoulder at the angel who was hurriedly ushering him back to his horse, predictably very black and every bit as hellish as a horse could get. He was so taken aback he didn't even try to resist. There was only anger, though, no pain. Not yet.

Aziraphale stopped, giving him a hurt, accusatory look and saying that Crowley obviously should know better than that. Crowley did not, of course, know better. He whirled around, not saying a single word to the now slightly more worried and confused angel, got into the saddle and beckoned the horse to get going in such a murderous tone of voice the poor animal whinnied, apparently utterly terrified.

So, once he'd reached Constantinople, supernaturally fast, only a day or two later, feeling, of all things, infuriatingly _lonely_, Crowley went on a drinking spree. That did help for a while but started to seem rather tedious after a few weeks. He stopped then, but the annoying thoughts came back immediately, bringing some reluctant realisations in their wake, too. The acknowledgement of that aching feeling deep inside of him.

He remembered turning to look back as he was leaving, throwing one last glance at Aziraphale, and what he'd seen was that the woman – important soul and all that bullshit – was cupping the angel's cheeks as if trying to cheer him up. There was a part of Crowley – that malicious, demonic, angry one – that thought, scornfully, that she'd have to be a bit more elaborate and probably touch something else beside his cheeks to cheer up that feathered bastard since he was wearing his human form and could – and what was more important, was actually _allowed_ _to_ – make an effort perfectly well. But the most of him for what seemed like the first time since his Fall felt abandoned, betrayed and acutely alone. 

Later, when Crowley had got sober enough to get a hold of his wits, he realised there was even more to it than just anger and resentment. There was jealousy, so fierce and stinging he was genuinely taken aback by its force. He realised that he wished – to his certain disgust and dismay – to be able to touch Aziraphale the way that nameless woman had touched him. The gesture had looked like it had an underlying sense of intimacy about it, the kind of it he'd never be capable of achieving as far as the angel was concerned, and… and, well_, touché_. He was apparently going mad, and decidedly not anywhere near slightly.

Crowley _wanted_ Aziraphale. He'd always wanted Aziraphale, of course, if you got straight to the point. The soothing presence and the radiance and the heavenly glow and all the healing powers he possessed, all that shit was addictive, all right. But now was the first time that Crowley had realised he wanted the angel in a primitively _physical_ sense. He wanted to touch, to squeeze, to stroke, to let his tongue—  
  
And, oh well, there went the remains of the self-control he seemed to have gained. He'd get stone-dead drunk, over and over and over again, until the idea of _wanting_ Aziraphale finally stopped looking so absolutely atrocious. No, it still _was_ atrocious, of course, but just a little bit less so. Crowley tried to persuade himself at first that it was just lust, and, for a demon, lust was only normal. In fact, it was encouraged. Lust was what his folk did, after all. His relief was short-lived, however, since very soon after the first realisation he understood – and it had been quite a hell lot of realisations for one demon in the course of a few months – that his lust was never going to be quenched. Not unless he wanted that blasted idiot of an angel to Fall, and in Crowley's miserable case _that_ was out of question.

He cursed into the wine that sloshed at the bottom of yet another cup in the row of many and went to sleep for a few decades, hoping that by the time he woke up that sorry business with human wives would have been finished once and for all, and then that heavenly moron would owe him a lot, and Crowley meant _a lot_.

As a matter of fact, Aziraphale somehow seemed to realise that something must have been amiss, too, and the next time his and Crowley's paths crossed, the angel didn't seem to mind treating him to a very generous dinner. By that time, Crowley had more or less managed to reconcile with the shameful fact of desiring the angel. He justified it by calling it lust, and lusting was in his nature, so it was all right. Come to think of it, he didn't have any choice in the matter but to get over it, anyway – he was stationed here on Earth, and the only other being who could give him some company was Aziraphale, so ignoring him for the rest of his days wasn't an option. Besides, Crowley reckoned, he still needed him and his blessed _lovingness_ to scare his nightmares away every once in a while, if nothing else. If push came to shove – and it did, too – Crowley could always alleviate his longing by other means. He wasn't particularly keen on humans in that sense, but they would have to do, and so they did.

*****

_London, 17th century AD_

Crowley rapped on the door of the bookshop, the only place he knew that was as close to home as he'd ever get, and now in the state he was in it was perhaps forgivable for him to be that ridiculously sentimental. With the outbreak of plague in London at its worst, and thousands of people dying weekly, and given what Crowley had been engaging in, very much unlike any other opulent citizens one of whom he pretended to be, who were fleeing London or England altogether seeking safety, it was no wonder he had become afflicted, too. It didn't pose much of a threat, not really given the fact of his immortality – the worst thing that could happen – and most certainly would, judging by his state – was discorporation, doubtlessly inconvenient but remediable in the course of a couple of weeks. What was particularly unpleasant was the way he was going to go, suffering from pneumonia and eaten alive by fever, way past his abilities to heal now, so Crowley resorted to the only solution he could think of. It might have been induced by his fever-ridden brain, but Crowley didn't have a clue what else he could do in this case but die slowly and painfully. He'd prefer to avoid that if he could.

For once in a lifetime, there was no shout from the inside that they were closed, apparently because Aziraphale was doing the best he could to provide help and relief to those who were ailed by the disease and the person knocking on his door might very well be one of them. Well, this wasn't too far from the truth.

"_Crowley_?" the angel looked positively taken aback as he took in the sight which was very likely not particularly appealing. "What on earth… my dear, are you--"

"Not really," Crowley wheezed, leaning against the doorframe and squinting against the light spilling outside from the bookshop. He barely recognised his own voice, hoarse and raspy, each breath echoing with dull ache in his chest and accompanied by gurgling watery sounds.

A moment later, Aziraphale's hands were on his forehead and cheeks, so blessedly cool Crowley couldn't help a pathetic little moan. They were gone all too soon, though, as the angel grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him inside, stumbling a little as he hadn't apparently anticipated Crowley to nearly fall as he took a step inside.

"Come… oh dear, how long has it been?" Aziraphale muttered as he led the demon inside, Crowley sagging against him, so stout and solid and so blessedly angelic. It was absolutely beyond his power not to soak in the so sought for radiance, especially given how soothing it felt on his burning corporation.

"Come on, Crowley, be just a tad more cooperative, eh, that's a good chap?" the angel went on, leading Crowley into the depths of the shop and apparently struggling with Crowley's uncoordinated movements.

The next thing he knew, he was in a horizontal position, the angel leaning over him, eyes blue and worried, but at the same time so wonderfully familiar. Yeah, that was a good idea to come here, if anyone could be quick and professional at discorporating him efficiently, it was the angel. It was a shame suicide was repulsive to Crowley, otherwise he'd have put an end to his own suffering a while ago and would be already in the midst of reporting to whoever was responsible Downstairs for issuing him a new corporation.

"Wanted to ask a favour…" Crowley rasped trying to stay conscious for long enough to explain to the angel what he wanted from him.

"Shhh, don't talk, you'll make it worse," Aziraphale shook his head, rather business-like, as he brushed stay strands of hair off Crowley's burning brow.

With the last bits of strength, Crowley rolled his eyes. "Finish me off," he breathed out, unfortunately, apparently not resolutely enough to convey what he meant because the next moment Aziraphale stared at him in shock.

"_What_?" he asked after a long moment of looking down at Crowley as if he'd lost his mind.

"Just discorporate me," Crowley sighed, ending up in a fit of lousy cough. "Couldn't bring myself up to it, and it looks like it's beyond my power to cure anyway, and I don't wanna spend another few days dying slowly. Be merciful, angel, it's in your job description."

The tirade wore him out even more, the ceiling spinning above him in nauseating carousel, so Crowley squeezed his eyes shut, wishing Aziraphale wouldn't be such an arse about it.

"Killing anyone is certainly _not_ in my job description--"

"Oh, you seemed to be of a different opinion back in the beginning, had no trouble--" Crowley tried to huff but once again only wheezed in the end.

"Oh, do shut up," Aziraphale sighed, sounding a bit exasperated, but it was still softened by the genuine concern in his voice. "It's not beyond my ability to heal, you fool, not when it comes to a supernatural entity."

"Fuck's sake, angel, ssspare me the--"

"Hush," Aziraphale said, way more gently than before, hands once again on Crowley's cheek, subsequently sliding down to the sides of Crowley's aching throat, fingertips examining the swollen lymph glands ever so cautiously.

Crowley closed his eyes in defeat. That said, the defeat didn't seem all that bad because the next moment the said fingers were deftly undoing Crowley's jacket and then his shirt, and then there it was, Aziraphale's hands on his chest, cool on his feverish bare skin, the touch, albeit the gentlest possible, feeling as if it had sent a jolt of electricity through Crowley's frame. Crowley's eyes shot open as he felt two palms pressing to both sides of his chest and the subsequent cautious flow of divine power, burning on his skin worse than the fever inside of it. Mortified, Crowley heard himself whine softly.

"Shhh," Aziraphale murmured soothingly, eyes briefly darting to Crowley's wide-open ones. "Might hurt if I pour too much into you, so I'll just settle for a little at a time, all right?"

"Ngk," Crowley said, unable to take his eyes off the sight of Aziraphale's immaculate angelic hands on his own naked chest. He wasn't sure it wasn't raising his body temperature even more than it already was.

Angelic healing did hurt if administered too carelessly, more likely to cause more shock and result in more damage than it was worth, but Aziraphale had got skilled enough at it, at least as far as healing one certain demon was concerned, so his treatment was merely unpleasant. Besides, it was complemented by a cool sensation on his forehead and cheeks, and Crowley realised with gratitude that the angel kept his face moist to keep the fever down a little.

"Whatever you're still doing in London?" Aziraphale asked meanwhile. "I thought you'd be on your way out to somewhere nice and warm and sunny."

Crowley opened his eyes, which didn't quite cooperate with him, leaving everything as if he were looking at it through a rain streaked window pane. "Been busy with…" he hesitated, not wishing to disclose what exactly he'd been up to in the horror-stricken capital. "With stuff."

"Haven't people already got enough trouble on their hands without your meddling in?" the angel asked without looking at him, not unkindly, though, sounding merely curious, as his hands went on gingerly probing at places which hurt the most, now approaching Crowley's groin. The demon wished he wouldn't venture out there, not until he passed out at least. The sting of the angel's words managed to distract him from it, though, for some reason more offending than Crowley cared to admit.

"Was actually helping children escape while it wasn't too late, if you must know," Crowley muttered, eyes fixed on the darkest upper corner of the room.

He wasn't particularly proud of it, he was a demon and saving orphaned children was certainly not in his job description, but he couldn't help himself. It's true, both Aziraphale and he, according to their Arrangement, sometimes lent a helping hand as far as accomplishing certain tasks was concerned, but that was strictly for the mutual convenience, a favour for a favour. This was different, and the angel had every right to look a little floored.

He felt Aziraphale's hands stop, thankfully never reaching his groin, and when he allowed his gaze to slip back to the angel's, the latter was staring at him with an odd expression in his celestial blue eyes. Crowley closed his, unable to withstand whatever the hell he saw in them, so blue and so divine. A moment later, there was Aziraphale's hand on his cheek again and Crowley almost unconsciously turned his head a little to nuzzle his face into its pleasant coolness, unable to contain a soft whimper.

"I'm so done, angel," he mumbled squeezing his eyelids tightly.

The ceiling kept swirling above him even though he couldn't see it with his eyes closed and thus made him even sicker than he already was. Crowley did his best to concentrate on not becoming sick, though, and it was draining him of what little energy he still seemed to possess, Aziraphale's proximity making him both relieved and unnerved.

"Stop being silly, Crowley," the angel, _his_ angel, said softly. "You are not done, just sick, and it's remediable."   
  
Crowley managed a faint, ironic smile. He was not, of course; not in the sense the angel supposed he meant he was. But he was still done. He _loved_ Aziraphale, and there certainly was no remedy for that. For all he knew right now, looking into the angel's heavenly-blue, worried, eyes, he might have loved him for quite some time, too. The insight, almost a blasted epiphany, was so clear and so powerful he nearly felt sick all over again, this time decidedly not due to his condition. If Hell knew, the Inquisition would seem to him a yet not invented wellness resort, but for the time being he didn't have any intentions of making it known to anyone, let alone to his bosses. For the time being, Aziraphale's cool, soothing hands, so awfully tender and careful, on his forehead and temples were all that personally concerned him, so he closed his eyes with a soft sigh of relief and let his angel take care, soothing the pain and banishing the fever.

"Sleep, my dear," he heard Aziraphale murmur, voice somewhere so very close to Crowley's ear it was both unsettling and delightful. "You'll be right as rain soon enough."

Crowley turned his head towards the voice, the action seeming to require a titanic effort but it was worthwhile as the tip of his nose brushed ever so lightly over the soft curls, which were gone a moment later.

_Someone help me_, was Crowley's last relatively coherent thought before he drifted off into a slumber. He was still sore, his chest feeling as if a damn ironwood box was sitting on it, his throat inflamed, his head pounding and he was alternatively either cold or hot, but however much divine power Aziraphale had dared pour into him was already doing its job.

In the course of the night, Crowley found himself repeatedly woken up by fits of cough so strong it was nigh on suffocating, but every single time as he doubled over, chest and abdomen burning from the strain, he registered Aziraphale's hands holding him securely, one on his back, one on his chest, a trickle of celestial magic seeping into him in small portions, burning but soothing the aches in his body all the same. Sometime afterwards, and he wasn't sure he wasn't dreaming it all up, he rolled over the bed, hopelessly entangled into the duvet, until his nose bumped into something rather soft yet solid. The something let out a hushed gasp of surprise but didn't move out of the way, and Crowley gratefully nuzzled his face into whichever part of his angel it was. He registered feeling better, bone-tired still though, so the effort which was required to lift up his arm and drag it across Aziraphale's body was immense. Eventually, Crowley did manage to accomplish it, which left him light-headed and out of breath yet inexplicably comfortable, hand loosely clutching at whatever garment the angel was wearing. A moment later, he felt the weight of an arm wrapping around his own shoulders, and then something feather-light brushing over his cheek, as soft as down… Crowley's eyes shot open, but in the darkness all he could distinguish was some dark fabric right in front of his face and just a glimpse of white in his peripheral vision. A glimpse was enough, though, to tell he had Aziraphale's wing covering him, and just like that, he knew, he was falling without any hope for salvation. He wasn't sure he needed one – out of the two of them, he could fall as much as he pleased – he couldn't fall lower anyway, he was already a Fallen one.

Crowley drifted off to sleep feeling Aziraphale's breath on his forehead and then a soft touch of his dry lips. It wasn't a kiss, he was certain, couldn't be, the angel was most likely checking how feverish his skin still was, but it didn't even matter anymore – it was yet another nail Aziraphale had just unwittingly driven into the coffin of Crowley's defences.

He had never been this happy not to have been dead.

In the morning, there was no sign of Aziraphale in the vicinity of the bed, although his ethereal glow was still perceptible, emanating from what felt like every single object in the room. What Crowley was holding on to was a pillow, face buried into it and his mouth open and drooling profusely. It still bore the scent of the angel, though, Crowley would never mistake it for anything else. He never knew if he'd dreamt it all, or whether Aziraphale had indeed stayed with him in the course of that long night, but he kept this memory and guarded it as something precious thereafter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *'Spell' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds


	5. Chapter 5

_My kill-hand is called E.V.I.L._   
_ Wears a wedding band that's G.O.O.D._   
_ 'Tis a long-suffering shackle_   
_ Collaring all that rebel blood._

_And the mercy seat is waiting_   
_ And I think my head is burning_   
_ And in a way I'm yearning_   
_ To be done with all this measuring of truth.*©_

*********

Closer to dawn, with the darkest, coldest, dreariest hours of the night finally left behind, Aziraphale's breathing evened as he had drifted into an exhausted sleep which, Crowley dearly hoped, would be totally devoid of any kind of dreams whatsoever. Despite wanting desperately to follow the angel's example and drop into the land of oblivion, forgetting about everything that had taken place in the past several hours, Crowley remained awake, both being on guard in case somebody caught up with them and thinking hard as to what they could do next if no one didn't. He cursed himself repeatedly for not knowing how to possibly be of any help to Aziraphale in the current circumstances. His memories of that initial period after the Fall were clear enough – that was, if he purposefully wanted them to be clear, which he decidedly did not most of the time – but they did not suggest any way of dealing either with the nightmares or with the sense of the blackest void unfurling in the place which used to be occupied by His love and light. Back then after the Garden, Aziraphale unheedingly had become his only cure and hope for salvation and remained one forever after. His mere presence had always worked as a painkiller, and in the years to come Crowley had repeatedly caught himself wondering what on earth would have become of him hadn't it been for the angel right at the very beginning of it all. 

And now it had come full circle again, but there was no angel around to ease the pain for Aziraphale. Crowley wondered just how bad it was for him. He wished he could become that alleviating presence Aziraphale had always been for him. He wished he could somehow ward the nightmares away. He wished he could heal with one touch and soothe with one word. Oh, how he wished…

But healing and soothing was what came naturally to the celestial lot, and Crowley was no longer one of them. He had been, once, but he wasn't entirely certain that even then he'd been of much use in the compassion department. If he had, he probably wouldn’t have tumbled off the edge of Heaven as stupidly as he had.

So all he could do now was keep his night vigil until the first rays of the morning sun painted the trees tops outside their window in the gentlest shade of pink. Crowley's foreboding thoughts did not retreat, however, and he wondered bitterly how come all those marvellous natural colours could still be so vibrant while the eyes of his angel were devoid of their innate cerulean blue. He didn't dare allow himself doze off even for a heartbeat – lying awake, feeling scared and lonely in the false light of the incipient morning, doing nothing but thinking hard, his mind as if stuck on rewind, various _'what-will-be's_ and _'what-will-come's_ circling in his head like a pack of hungry wolves, prowling around and waiting for him to blink to finally get him and devour him. 

Paranoia's grip on him was also beginning to grow stronger. Why hadn't anyone come to get Aziraphale – or possibly both of them – yet? Murdering him had ended up in a failure, but, hey, he was still pretty much where he was supposed to be, not in his Mayfair flat but in close proximity, why was there no one to finish the business? Was it a good sign or a bad one? Did it mean Hell was preparing a trap? An ambush waiting for them somewhere outside? Were they just biding their time, expecting him to lower his guard and then attack? Had it been a thoroughly planned campaign or just nothing more than a malicious attempt at revenge? Or could it be that this guy with his bucket of Holy water and a blessed dagger was no one's agent at all? Crowley wished to believe so like nothing else but it seemed way too good to be true. Hell wasn't known for being particularly merciful, and Heaven was equally vicious when they put their mind to it. The simple conclusion was, thus, that both Aziraphale and he were seriously fucked.

Another question was, however, whether it made any sense to stay here and wait for that to happen. Or could they possibly make a run for it? Did they still have the time to do it or had they already wasted too much? Or could they stay where they were and probably give them all – whoever and whatever they were – a good fight? Just in spite, simply for the sake of slamming the metaphorical door as they both went out for good?

The first option still seemed like the lesser evil, though. Crowley suspected that, if push came to shove, they could always make their last and perhaps not very heroic stand, but if they had even a small chance of avoiding it – however microscopic it might be – the wiser thing would be to try and do it. He didn't really believe such a chance existed – they'd been lucky once, back then with the wretched Apocalypse business, but he doubted there was enough luck stored in this world to pull them through this mess this time around.

Still, he suspected, they were deprived of the privilege of choice. There couldn't be more harm in running than in staying here and waiting for someone to come for them, eventually, so, ultimately, there didn't seem to be much to lose. Well, apart from their almost immortal lives, of course, but losing them together would perhaps be just a bit better than whatever Hell or Heaven could come up with in order to punish them for… well, there were plenty of things they could be charged with if either Heaven or Hell wanted their revenge.

So, running it was then, Crowley decided, and making themselves as scarce as possible. Hell could probably track them – he had no idea about Heaven's state of navigation devices, though – but it would still take them a while given their poor mastering of modern technologies if he and Aziraphale managed to fly under the radar. Technologically-wise the Downstairs were still stuck in the Dark Ages, and for the first time in his existence Crowley felt genuinely grateful that all his attempts to convince them that humanity had come up with quite a few things that were worth implementing had miserably failed.

But even taking into consideration the sorry state of technologies their former employees possessed, they'd better be on the move soon.

Later when he woke up, looking sick pale but somewhat more composed than he'd been the night before, Aziraphale agreed that staying in England and simply waiting for someone – anyone – to turn up was pointless. Fleeing might still be just as futile, of course – after all, Hell, or Heaven, for that matter, or both of them, which would be twice as bad, shouldn't really have much trouble locating two lesser demons on the run, but this way they could probably buy themselves some time. 

A precious little, but even little was better than nothing at all, Crowley mused as he was locking up his Bentley in the build-in garage in his apartment building, back in Mayfair for one last time before they set off. Turning away from that garage door and facing the world which suddenly seemed hostile and unpredictable would have broken his heart hadn't it already been shattered to pieces by Aziraphale's Fall the night before. The angel himself was keeping a little way away, apparently allowing him a moment with his beloved vehicle, and for the second time in his and the Bentley's shared existence Crowley was feeling as if he was saying good-bye to it forever.

The first had been back when it had finally sunk down onto the cracked tarmac of the Lower Tadfield air base in a charred heap of iron and burnt rubber. Crowley couldn't have imagined he'd actually have the chance to see it again, immaculately unharmed and gleaming, but, frankly, back then he hadn't really believed he'd live long enough to see another morning, let alone anything else. Then, however, the eleven-year-old Antichrist had managed to set everything right. Crowley seriously doubted that Adam Young, twenty-two years older now than he'd been back then, would have any wish to save their sorry arses this time. After all, it wasn't a matter of life and death of the entire universe anymore. It was only a matter of life and death of its two insignificant pawns, and in the great scheme of things neither of them made much of a difference.

They could drive the Bentley, of course. Crowley had absolutely no doubt it'd take them pretty much anywhere in the world, given enough willpower and just a tad of tweaking with the matter of reality. Which, ultimately, was the problem. If they had to run, tweaking with reality was the last thing they wanted to do, lest they wish to wave a huge metaphoric red flag, burn signal fires all over the place and yell on top of their lungs to make their whereabouts known to everyone. So trivial human ways it was, and thus, very trivially, they started with a taxi, which subsequently brought them to a car dealership. 

Going through the list of the Bentley's possible substitutes made Crowley sick to his stomach. There were cars which would surely turn into rustbuckets in no time at all, there were genuinely bad cars, there were reasonable cars, there were luxurious cars, there were even a few good ones, but good as they were, they were nowhere near his Bentley. No, cars like that had long gone out of production. They used to have what modern models lacked hopelessly – they used to have souls, and those souls were now substituted with plastic and carbon fibre, expensive, light, durable, and decidedly soulless. 

"Your choice, angel," Crowley scowled, let out a rather despondent sigh, and shook his head to emphasise his point. "To me they all look equally rubbish."

"But I don't drive, my dear," Aziraphale pointed out quietly.

He looked pallid, weary and lost amongst the gleaming new cars, still dressed in the now rather rumpled trousers he'd worn the day before, with blood stains foresightedly miracled off them by the demon, and one of Crowley's own white shirts – the one from the previous night had been beyond redemption. There was no jacket to speak of, and no tartan in sight, either, which, somehow, showed Aziraphale in a new, vulnerable light Crowley had never seen him in before.

"Choose the one you'd like to learn to drive then," Crowley offered softly, his hand coming to rest on Aziraphale's upper arm and giving it a squeeze, as gentle as he could muster. "Given the venture we're on, I think you'll have to, sooner or later anyway."

He was still feeling utterly inadequate in the soothing department, and the fact that the car dealer, who was slouching behind his desk a little way away from them, was obviously shooting them curious glances didn't help him in the slightest. In the past, before all this hell had broken loose, he'd imagined that once the two of them had crossed this subtle line and turned into what they might have been supposed to be right from the start, lovers, he'd be the most complacent demon, showing his angel off to whoever happened to be around, ravelling in the realisation that his centuries-old waiting had finally come to an end. Now that it had, at last, there was little joy in it, Crowley was discovering with inner sense of dread, not with Aziraphale in the state he was in.

_One step at a time_, he told himself, willing his heart to stop trying to break into a million pieces every time he looked into Aziraphale's new pale eyes, the amount of sheer anguish and desperation in them so overwhelming it was nigh on suffocating him. 

Quite unexpectedly to the demon, what Aziraphale chose was not a potential rustbucket on four wheels or a tiny hybrid hatchback for a housewife to go grocery-shopping in, but a rather sensible yet perfectly blending in with the rest Mercedes Benz. It was black. It was German. It was – as far as public opinion went, anyway – comfortable and reliable. It had front seat heating system and climate control and standard suspension and averaged 19 miles per gallon, something which they'd better learn to be concerned about since conjuring things up was temporary out of question. On the whole, the car didn't even look too bad. If Crowley was human, and if he hadn't been involved into an almost one-hundred-year long loving relationship with the Bentley, it might even seem to him a rather nice one.

What they chose as their first destination, predictably enough given that they started off travelling by car, was France. Planes could certainly make the journey a bit less of a pain in the neck, but they demanded passports or visas or an occasional miracle of persuasion, and both of them agreed that the less they got exposed, the better. So France it was, for starters.

There was a whole of Europe to re-discover, and, frankly, it had been a while since either of them had actually ventured out of the United Kingdom, let alone had anything resembling a proper holiday. Right after the failed Apocalypse would have been as good a time as any to have some time off, especially taking into consideration their forced redundancy, but then again, he and Aziraphale had been quite preoccupied with other things, primarily flirting with each other, to actually entertain a thought of going anywhere else while everything seemed to be perfectly fine in London.

They could tour along the Atlantic coast as far as Portugal, and then there was, of course, Italy, and then Austria and Germany with its marvellous autobahns. They could have a little Scandinavian detour, too. And then… Russia was big and versatile, and they hadn't been in Japan for insultingly long, neglecting Asia, too… From there they would have to resort to actually getting on a plane if they wanted to get anywhere else, but that moment was still such a long time away it was rather useless to get concerned about it in the meantime. For all Crowley knew, their journey might end round the next corner.

He was given a start by Aziraphale's hand squeezing gently on his forearm. His eyes zoomed back in on the road instead of the illusory images of cliffs around Albufeira, endless autobahns and blooming sakura.

"You've been speeding up," the angel said, almost apologetically.

Out of nothing else but sheer habit, Crowley opened his mouth with intention to argue, to point out that the Bentley knew what it was doing and where it was going, or that Aziraphale would push tiresome pedestrians and other traffic participants out of their way anyway if need be--

Then he closed his mouth. This was a surprisingly good car, but it wasn't the Bentley, and Aziraphale himself was not in the right state to keep an eye on pedestrians and other traffic hazards. Besides, risking accidental discorporation would be sheer madness as it would mean that they'd end up nowhere else but in Hell, and Hell was precisely the thing they were running away from. Gently, the demon lifted his foot off the accelerator.

"Sorry," he muttered instead, rubbing his mouth with one hand. "Needs some getting used to, this entire _do it the human way_ thing."

"Of course," Aziraphale replied, briefly tightening his hold on Crowley's forearm before taking his hand away.

Crowley shot him a sideways glance. The angel's face still looked way too pale and haggard for his liking, but it was also set in that precise, very much Aziraphale-esque, manner. However great and irreversible the change was, it seemed he was already starting to cope with it, for better or worse.

They drove on in silence – the radio was off because better safe than sorry, Crowley reckoned. If Hell wanted them for real, Hell could reach them in any way they pleased, of course, radio or no radio, but Crowley certainly wasn't going to invite them to get in touch by opening the line of communication for them.

That night, they wound up in another small roadside motel. The building itself was rather nondescript and light years away from anything posh and luxurious Crowley was used to staying at, but as things stood at present, luxury was the last thing on the demon's mind. The less the facility resembled anything Crowley might feel like spending a night at, the safer it was for him and Aziraphale, he reckoned. Once again, it decidedly would not prevent either Heaven or Hell from being able to locate them should they try, but perhaps it would make their search just a tad more complicated, and that was all Crowley dared to hope for.

Inside, the motel was just as simple as it looked from the outside. The interior of the room they rented consisted of a rather plain set of furniture, most probably IKEA-made, which was one of Hell's creations, with Crowley's inevitable contribution to the project. He just loved the way people cursed and argued while trying to wrap their heads around how they should assemble the tricky things which bore unpronounceable names. He considered it to be one of his fairly efficient attempts at spreading irritation in the masses, relentlessly preferring to ignore Aziraphale's claims that, for all that, IKEA's furniture was affordable and reliable, and not all that tricky to assemble once one put his mind to it. Now, the memory made Crowley's chest tight; their eternal bickering, mostly joking as of late, on who did the right thing and who did the wrong one, their gentle teasing the demon suddenly missed so acutely his sinuses burnt. He blinked the incipient tears away furiously, unwilling to display weakness before Aziraphale – the angel already had enough on his plate to deal with without him getting scared and miserable. He had no right to be miserable now, not when Aziraphale needed him to stay strong for both their sakes.

Being on the run the human way was, as it turned out later that evening, a fit requiring annoying amounts of constant consideration, presence of mind and focusing on seemingly insignificant details that were oh so easy to overlook for a being of supernatural persuasion who'd spent the last six millennia rejoicing at the luxury of just conjuring things up when need be. It was coming on midnight when they discovered that during the day, they'd failed to take care of several minor, yet _humanly_ important, things such as a change of clean clothes and miscellaneous bathroom products, winding up in this motel with no other baggage but Crowley's slick mobile phone and a heavyset wallet stuffed with cash and credit cards to the brink of bursting, also Crowley's. Aziraphale didn't have anything with him at all but the clothes he was wearing, and half of them were also Crowley's.

There were, fortunately, two sets of towels and a few bottles with liquid soap, shampoo and shower gel in the bathroom, but that was virtually all, and Crowley realised that if they stuck to their resolution of refraining from resorting to magic, they were already short a few necessary items. A set of pyjamas, some spare underwear and a toothbrush would be nice, for starters. Standing in front of the sink in the motel's tiny bathroom, bare feet on a small rectangular brown towel which went for a bathroom floormat here, Crowley made a mental note to detour to the nearest supermarket or a shopping centre of sorts first thing in the morning. That was, if the two of them were going to see the light of it at all. With an unpleasant twist of dread in his gut, Crowley pushed the thought away.

When he left the bathroom, Aziraphale was already in bed, tucked under the blanket, with only a halo of curls, messily spread over the pillow, visible above. The light of the night lamp was dim, leaving shadows pool in the corners of the room. Crowley halted briefly in the doorway, glaring at them suspiciously, but all seemed as quiet and unthreatening as it had been.

He had put on his suit trousers and shirt after the shower, both garments looking not quite so immaculate after the long journey they'd made and without the constant flow of magic to keep them that way. The half of the bed Crowley was supposed to spend the night on was vacant, the corner of the blanket folded off as if in invitation. He swallowed, taking in the sight and wondering whether the angel huddling underneath the blanket was still dressed. Then his eyes caught sight of his own shirt, the one Aziraphale had worn earlier that day, and his trousers carefully folded over the back of a chair.

Biting his lips in a sudden and almost sickening in its intensity fit of uncertainty, Crowley padded on further into the room. Now that he'd seen Aziraphale's clothes actually away from where Aziraphale himself currently was, his mind insisted on working in an overdrive mode, making him twist and turn one single thought in his mind, that the angel was actually lying there practically naked. That was, if he hadn't after all given up on precaution – even if temporarily – and miracled himself up a pair of decent pyjamas.

"Do you mind if I… er, take off my clothes?" he asked the back of Aziraphale's head, feeling so impossibly inadequate it was almost comical. He'd probably laugh weren't it for the fact that standing right in the middle of this freakshow, suddenly feeling unforgivably flustered, was no one other but him.

Aziraphale half turned and gave him a rather funny glance Crowley couldn't quite decipher.

"No, my dear," he said at last, softly, and turned away.

_Oh boy_, Crowley thought, both slightly taken aback and more than just a little embarrassed. Well, no, if he was quite honest with himself, it wasn't just a little. Somehow, he was nigh on terrified. _Here goes the original bloody tempter,_ he went on, silently, and switched the lamp on the nightstand off. It felt a bit safer that way, with the darkness falling around him in a protective shroud. He didn't manage to unbutton his shirt from the first attempt either, part of it being that it was now pitch-black inside the room, and the other part that his hands were suddenly sweaty and trembling traitorously.

Which was, all things considered, nothing but ludicrous. He was a demon, for starters. He was vain, it was in his job description. He loved his corporation and felt perfectly comfortable in his own skin. On quite a few occasions when he and Aziraphale had had to share a room in the past, he had even made a show of sometimes changing his clothes right before Aziraphale's eyes, aiming at flustering the angel, which the latter, infuriatingly, refused to become (that was, he'd been resorting to that particular trick before he'd understood that he was in love with Aziraphale. Afterwards, the only person it could have possibly flustered was Crowley himself). He was used to sleeping _naked_ back in his own huge bed in Mayfair, so spending the night here still dressed in his underpants shouldn't really bother him at all. On second thought, though, his bed in Mayfair had distinctly lacked a certain half-undressed angel huddling underneath the blanket. The angel Crowley was so madly in love with; the angel he would sacrifice his own life to protect, he knew; the angel who was curled up on his side facing away from him, looking lost and lonely and sad, and once again a thought he wasn't particularly keen on having resurfaced in his mind, that it was all wrong, that it should be happening in a different way.

Crowley felt himself shudder as he let his trousers slip down his long legs and then discarded them carelessly onto the back of the chair on his side of the bed, the air in the room cool against his skin and making the fine hairs on his thighs rise. He'd never have believed that taking things slowly was actually this necessary for them _both_. He'd always assumed that it was mostly because Aziraphale was an _angel_, which simply required him to be… well, obliged him, actually, not to shed his clothes and pounce on somebody even if he truly loved them. He'd always supposed that, as far as his demonic nature was concerned, he shouldn't face any problems related to purely physical closeness with Aziraphale, should it ever take place anywhere but in his fever dreams. He'd always believed, apparently, rather naively, that when the time came, one thing which would certainly come naturally to him would be taking off his clothes and taking his angel to bed.

As it was turning out, however, for him, personally, _love_ required taking it even slower than one step at a time. Love wasn't something you just jumped into, head over heels, otherwise you probably ran the risk of being annihilated on the go. One step in a few years would probably have done the trick, but after what had taken place one day ago, it didn't look like they might have even a few days ahead of them, let alone a year. All they possibly were in possession of was this one night.

After a moment's hesitation, the demon did finally slip beneath the blanket, almost apprehensively slowly. He knew there were no miracle pyjamas on Aziraphale before he had the chance to actually _touch_ him – the warmth radiating off his body hit Crowley like a freight train, intoxicating and compelling and simply impossible to resist. Part of it must have been Crowley's true form, his reptilian nature, which drew him towards the source of heat on some intrinsic level. The other part was the love and desire and protectiveness and possessiveness Aziraphale invoked in him all at once.

Clinging didn't seem such an awkward thing to do anymore, that fit of uncertainty and confusion loosening its grip on him just enough to let Crowley move closer until his stomach was pressed flush against the angel's back. The warmth – the living heat – of Aziraphale's skin robbed Crowley of his breath for a few long moments before he was able to regain it with a convulsive inhale. For a fraction of a second, Aziraphale's body went rigid against his – as he was apparently just as shocked by this sheer physical proximity as Crowley was himself – and then relaxed gradually into the demon's still tentative but very intimate embrace.

Cautiously, as if Aziraphale was some sort of a dangerous animal that could lash out at him and bite his head off, Crowley let his hand rest on the angel's bare shoulder, swallowed hard and then moved it on, almost reverently so. He let it slide down along Aziraphale's upper arm, to his elbow, barely even touching the angel's skin. It was smooth and warm and with a hint of firmness beneath, and Crowley realised it wasn't only magic with which an eternity ago Aziraphale wielded his flaming sword, standing guard at the Eastern Gate of Eden. There were firm muscles beneath his soft skin, not particularly pronounced after years upon years of stealing angel cake from Crowley at the Ritz but definitely _there_.

Hardly daring to breathe, Crowley let his hand keep on its exploration, venturing further across Aziraphale's stomach. The angel – _his_ angel – had indeed lost some weight over the past couple of decades, which decidedly did not make him anything resembling stuffy, but Crowley was delighted more than he probably should be to still find that there was some softness left in the region of Aziraphale's middle. He pressed his slightly shaking hand against the curve of the angel's stomach, mesmerised by its movement as Aziraphale breathed, just a tad more irregularly than a minute before. Closing his eyes, Crowley buried his nose in Aziraphale's mussed curls, inhaling the scent that had become painfully familiar over the six millennia of their acquaintance, but which now, in this close proximity, seemed to contain some brand-new notes to it, the scents of skin, warmth and sweat mixing with those known to Crowley as sunshine and spices and tea.

His hand moved on, now all five fingers of his palm splayed against Aziraphale's body. It went up across the angel's bare chest, and as Crowley's pinkie grazed a nipple, Aziraphale twitched against this touch, the bud of skin hardening immediately. The silence of the room soon filled with ragged kind of breaths, and it took Crowley quite a while to register that those were his own, that he was actually panting into Aziraphale's cloud of curls, warmth spreading through his lower stomach and groin at frightening speed.

Now, some believed that both angels and demons were sexless unless they chose to make an effort. It was true to some extent, with most angels looking rather androgynous in their ethereal forms, and, with regard to demons, it was hard to determine their gender since it was on general principle hard to look at most of them. As far as Crowley and Aziraphale were concerned, however, no effort was required. They both had been stationed here on Earth for millennia on end, wearing their human corporations, and their corporations were both decidedly _male_. That's why there was absolutely no surprise that, after a while, the heat that had been accumulating in Crowley's decidedly male nether regions soon evolved into a painfully solid erection that rested against his angel's behind, separated from Aziraphale's skin by two thin layers of fabric.

Crowley shuddered, feeling the muscles of his abdomen twitch, making him want to push his pelvis hard and rub himself against Aziraphale into delirium, all those solitary nights tainted by yearning so strong and desperate finally finding an outlet, the desire suppressed for centuries making his head spin and vision swim. He didn't quite dare, though, he didn't even know why. For all he knew, it might simply be too much too soon for the likes of him, so he remained where he was, with his groin pressed tightly to Aziraphale's very tempting backside, but not moving a single limb of his body apart from his exploring hand.

He'd always suspected there was a place in him for such things, that he wasn't totally devoid of the ability to feel love, especially given the amount of time he'd spent on Earth next to an actual angel, all things considered, but hey, they'd been taking it one step at a time for the past twenty years – and for hundreds upon hundreds before that – and the rate at which things were happening now seemed to be close to the speed of light. He'd just been wondering the other day what kind of pastries he could surprise his angel with so that they could bring their ongoing flirting just a tad further, or what kind of places he'd like to take Aziraphale to so that they could be left in a small bubble of intimacy, just the two of them, so that perhaps – just perhaps – Crowley could hold the angel's hand and leave featherweight caresses along his neat fingers. This was – used to be – the extent to which they'd dared take their relationship so far, and all of a sudden Crowley was finding himself sharing a bed with the angel, both of them at the stage of undress that left nothing ambiguous about their relationship, and Aziraphale was an angel no more, and he loved Crowley, and Crowley knew what his kisses tasted like, and, on top of it all, the very physical manifestation of his want he'd been hiding for centuries on end, was now very unequivocally resting against Aziraphale's buttocks.

Slowly, Crowley dragged his hand up to the angel's throat, his thumb leaving a brushing caress across his larynx, and this time it was the angel who shivered under his touch. Crowley heard – _felt_ – him swallow, which was followed by a shaky inhale, and oh someone_ – something_ – help him, his mind seemed to be incapable of taking in everything that had been happening since yesterday, starting from that dreadful incident in Soho and Aziraphale's subsequent Fall and ending up here, in one bed, practically naked, skin on skin, still acutely alive and achingly in love and burning with desire and desperately needing Aziraphale to turn round to face him, take him, love him. 

The angel did not, though, but he didn't shy away from Crowley's touch either, so the demon just went on, curiosity mixed with fear mixed with desire old and inlaid into his very core. His hand moved on, to Aziraphale's shoulder again, over his clavicle, over the ever so slightly – unlike his own, which stuck out prominently – protruding collarbones, his chest again, those compelling hard buds of his nipples, down over Aziraphale's ribcage and across his heaving stomach, exploring, learning, getting acquainted with every single fold of the angel's skin and every single curve of his body. In a while, Crowley's fingertips had grown quick and sure, touching, fluttering over the so temptingly warm skin, the way a snake's tongue would dart out time and again to let it feel – _taste_ – the surroundings, and soon, Aziraphale's breathing was matching Crowley's own in its raggedness and irregularity.

Crowley's hand only hesitated once it reached Aziraphale's lower abdomen, lingering there for far too long. He wanted to let it slide even further down, to explore the parts which he had only _imagined_ before, in dreams which had long ceased to be nightmares and evolved into ones featuring a lot of bare skin and the most dazzling, ravishing, brilliant angel there was. Crowley craved this closeness like a junkie would crave another shot of his drug of choice, but his fear of intimacy, his fear of being an inadequate match for the angel's love, matched his longing for it in its intensity.

At last, it was Aziraphale who made up Crowley's mind for him. His own hand, so soft and warm and so _familiar_, covered his, fingers entwined, and pushed it gently but firmly down. Crowley's fingertips brushed over a thin trail of fine hair – surprising him as he went, too, but then on second notice it was just so very _Aziraphale_, to have all those human attributes present, just like his slightly crooked teeth or the glasses which he occasionally wore – and then past the waistband of Aziraphale's underwear. Aziraphale gave his hand a little squeeze, almost an encouraging one, and withdrew, leaving the demon to make that final decision for himself.

Crowley made a tiny motion and then, as the angel shivered against him with his whole body, he gasped, too, from the sheer _physicality_ of it all. There he was, his hand curled around the length of Aziraphale's flesh, and they just fit, perfectly so, the angel's cock – smooth and simultaneously soft and hard and pulsing and just as solid as the angel himself had always been – and his palm, his fingers trembling just a little, but getting quickly adjusted, and soon Crowley was stroking Aziraphale confidently, almost knowingly, as if he'd been doing just that all his existence.

Aziraphale emitted a suppressed moan, then gasped, and Crowley felt his hips beginning to meet the motions of his hand, pushing into it, more and more desperately with every stroke. Overwhelmed, Crowley pressed his lips to the spot where the angel's neck joined his shoulder, where the angel's heartbeat was hammering madly. He kissed it, lips quivering, breath ragged, his mouth forming a surprised, amazed _'O'_ as his hand went on with those relentless ministrations, the muscles in his forearm starting to gradually feel the strain and then burn, but Crowley couldn't – _wouldn't_ – stop, wouldn't stop until the moment everything that Aziraphale was suddenly went rigid against him, every single muscle in his body tense as a bowstring. Crowley felt the warm, sticky, wetness on his fingers, and this time the angel's gasps were vocalised, synchronised with the throbbing of his flesh in Crowley's grip.

With his own mouth slack and still pressed to Aziraphale's shoulder, hand finally still on his softening flesh, Crowley panted trying but unable to find his own breath when he felt the scorching touch of the angel's fingers on his hip. He couldn't comprehend what exactly the latter wanted until Aziraphale actually pulled him even closer, bucking his behind against Crowley's crotch in a way that made the demon let out the most embarrassingly desperate sob. He didn't resist, though. Arms snaking around the angel's middle, squeezing him perhaps way too tightly for Aziraphale's comfort, Crowley brought himself flush against him, rubbing himself against the curve of Aziraphale's butt as the sweet and almost painful pressure in his groin grew irresistibly and his mind became hazier by the moment.

It went on until nothing was left around them, Crowley's entire universe shrinking to the fundamental presence of his angel, to Aziraphale's hand clamped over his hip and to the wildfire devouring his body, growing and spreading through him, promising him heaven on earth, a perfect moment of rapture of becoming one with the being he loved with his entire soul.

And heaven came, with a couple of his final thrusts, and there was a sense of relief and release and surrender, something which wasn't unfamiliar to him, but so utterly new in the presence of the only being he wanted to share it with. For just a few moments, they were truly one, breaths, heartbeats, senses perfectly synchronised, and then it was over and Crowley sagged against Aziraphale, suddenly bone-tired, with a weird sensation of being completely drained settling deep within him.

They remained motionless for a while, and then Aziraphale squirmed and turned in Crowley's embrace, his own arms coming to wrap around the demon's slender body and his mouth nuzzling one of Crowley's collar bones, his face wet either with sweat or tears or both, hot on Crowley's skin. The demon squeezed his eyes shut, pulling the angel – his angel, forever his – even closer and trying to somehow overcome this almost horrible in its force fit of overwhelming love he suddenly felt for Aziraphale. He was afraid that if he didn't, it would simply suffocate him. He was a demon, he wasn't supposed to be feeling it this intensely, and yet he was, and of all the things he'd had to cope with recently, this one, this profound, overwhelming feeling of love, was the hardest.

Aziraphale seemed to have fallen asleep without much trouble, sprawled almost on top of him, but Crowley didn't dare to close his eyes lest he succumb to sleep as well. He couldn't allow that. He doubted there was much use in keeping his nightly vigils because if either Above or Below really put an effort into finding them and exterminating them, nothing would manage to prevent them from doing so. Yet still, he wasn't going to give them even the tiniest advantage of taking them by surprise. He was resolute on remaining awake till morning and he still was far from being convinced that they'd see the light of it.

What he really wished he could do now was to be back in Mayfair, in his bed with its satin sheets, with Aziraphale _the angel_ sleeping just this peacefully by his side. Or even better, the upper floor bedroom in Aziraphale's Soho shop would be even more suitable, dust motes and old-fashioned wallpaper with its flower print, every single item infuriatingly obsolete but dear. What he really wanted now that he and Aziraphale were finally, unquestionably, together in the most intimate of ways, was _peace_. He wanted another six millennia just for the two of them, with dinners at the Ritz, walks in the St. James's and bottles of wine shared over a casual conversation or a heated discussion in the backroom of Aziraphale's bookshop, making amends for all the nights they'd spent away from each other. He wanted reassurance, too, Aziraphale's reassurance that he was doing all right, that this smothering feeling of love was all right, that he wasn't going to go insane because of the sheer intensity of it.

And that, he was convinced, was something they weren't going to get. They'd broken so many rules and defied so many people that it seemed both worlds should be hell bent on getting their backs at them this time.

Crowley suppressed a heavy sigh, not wishing to wake up the angel who seemed to be at least temporarily spared his nightmares, and prepared himself for another sleepless, darkest night. The bitter irony was, now that they'd given up on syphoning magic into their corporeal forms to maintain them, their bodies required sleep to recuperate, and with the stress of the past twenty-four hours, no matter how reluctant either of them was to doze off, it was hard to resist. It wasn't long, however, before Aziraphale woke up for the first time in the row of many, utterly terrified and clutching at Crowley's shoulders so hard that, come morning, it would leave bruises the demon wouldn't dare miracle away, and they'd remain on his skin, fading away from livid purple to yellowish to nothing over the course of the next several days.

Crowley did the best he could trying to talk and kiss Aziraphale out of the hell he was trapped in every single time, wiping the moisture from his cheeks and repeating over and over again that he was there for him, and always would be. At those moments, Aziraphale simply clung to him, wordlessly, and Crowley wasn't even sure he heard him. He would relax after a while, coming back to himself and reality, his death grip on Crowley's arms loosening into a much gentler hold, and then he would simply bury his face, still moist with tears, against Crowley's chest and drift off into another period of restless sleep, leaving Crowley to stare at the dark rectangle of the window and the shadows moving and twisting outside and wish that he had the chance to do what he'd always done when circumstances seemed to overwhelm him. He wished he could come to the bookshop, get inhumanly drunk and pass out in Aziraphale's warm angelic presence, safeguarded against all the hurt and trouble in the world as his angel watched his sleep.

Crowley wondered whether he'd be able to do that ever again and then bit his lip, hard. Just thinking of that was making him sick. As it was nearing morning and the pale pre-dawn light began to infiltrate through the half-closed blinds, Crowley, too, drifted off into a shallow semblance of slumber, still holding his angel securely against himself.

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *'The Mercy Seat' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds


	6. Chapter 6

_And I love you, and I love you, and I love you_   
_ Peace will come, a peace will come, a peace will come in time_   
_ A time will come, a time will come, a time will come for us.*©_

**********

Against all odds, morning did come, and there was no trap waiting for them outside and no visitors from either side. That day, a beautifully clear one, blue skies and puffy clouds scattered across its expanse, they drove through the French countryside towards the Atlantic coast. They could have headed for Paris, both of them being genuinely fond of the place, but the circumstances didn't seem particularly suitable and so they found themselves on the endless plains of Normandy driving at a steady 55 mph most of the day, in an attempt to put as large a distance as possible between themselves and what was – or maybe used to be – home.

Aziraphale kept quiet during the day, mostly gazing out of the window at the scenery, meadows and fields of all shades of green and yellow and tiny quaint villages. They'd been in some of them before, so many recollections of happier times evoked by them somehow only intensifying the profound dread their present predicament caused. The angel's reticence wouldn't have been something particularly unusual in other circumstances – they'd spent many a day and night in each other's company without exchanging as many as a dozen words, the silence always settling comfortably between them, the familiar, safe kind of it which soothed rather than unnerved because there wasn't anything to be concealed by it.

Now, though, there seemed to be lots to conceal. Even though the angel was obviously trying to do his best to keep the appearance of being able to deal with the entirety of what had happened, no uncontrollable bursting into tears or trembling hands anymore, Crowley could sense rather than actually see that everything was light years away from fine. There was a kind of suppressed melancholy, pain that was harnessed by sheer force of will and locked so deep inside, hanging over Aziraphale like a dark nebulae, thunderous not in a way that threatened to cause a storm of tremendous proportions but one which seemed to generate this endless, permeating silence into being as the angel retreated deeper and deeper within himself.

Crowley let him be, knowing from his own experience that some things had to be comprehended and dealt with on one's own, allowing the angel to be in the peace and quiet he deserved. Understanding that didn't, however, bring much relief to Crowley himself, as, every single time he cast a glance in Aziraphale's direction, beholding the paleness of his skin, the firmly set lips as if it was taking all he could muster to keep himself together, the downturned corners of his mouth, the sheer amount of anguish in those oddly colourless eyes of his, he was on the verge of forming one question he knew was pointless to ask – if Aziraphale was all right. He knew he wasn't, no matter how bravely he tried to show he was. All he could do was silently send a thought his way, one full of love, at least as much love as he was capable of, not sure if that was enough at all, acutely aware of his demonic nature, one which shouldn't be able to be compassionate at all but somehow was, in its own crooked way. He didn't dare presume it could possibly be as helpful as Aziraphale's own presence had been to him in those long-gone times after Eden, just there, flickering softly with divine light and love, soothing, giving hope, even if he hadn't even realised it back then, but he held on to thinking that it was something, and something was already better than nothing at all.

What also kept drawing Crowley's gaze to his partner and soulmate, apart from profound concern and fear for his wellbeing, was the change that had taken place in him and was probably still under way. It wasn't just his eyes, pretty much the same yet so different, it was that, somehow, for some perverse reason Crowley couldn't fathom, Aziraphale looked inexplicably beautiful in his grief. With his halo of fair curls illuminated by the setting sun, its light falling just so that his eyes almost did seem blue again, by some cruel trick of optical illusion, with his faded eyelashes fanned against the skin of his cheeks as the angel studied the scenery rushing past them for hours, those lips which had drawn Crowley's eyes to themselves so much whenever the angel was smiling softly at him now curled in a tragic line, those hands clasped in his lap, perfectly neat, fingers the softest and gentlest, veins standing out beneath the slightly tanned skin… Crowley wanted to hold those hands in his own and kiss every single knuckle and every finger, in that tenderest of ways Aziraphale deserved to be kissed, the ethereal perfection he'd always been.

There was another thing that had changed, too. Earlier that day they had indeed done some necessary shopping, Crowley abandoning his beloved slick suits in favour of a pair of black jeans, a t-shirt and a leather jacket, much less fancy yet still badass enough and way more practical given the endeavour they were on, which was generally different from how he would normally dress yet nothing out of ordinary. Aziraphale, though, ended up in something he'd never before have been caught dead wearing – classic blue jeans, a pastel coloured shirt, and a soft woollen cardigan on top of it all. He looked just so remarkably _normal, _Crowley noticed, in a very human sort of way. All in all, he had the air of a youngish university professor, more handsome than any professor had any right to be, what with that cloud of unruly blond curls, those two top buttons on his shirt left undone, exposing a teasing bit of his clavicle, and his jeans being just the right amount of tight in the region of his crotch. Now, Crowley was a demon, had been a demon for millennia, and, being the sole creator of it, he knew what temptation was. Aziraphale had always been the embodiment of one, as far as he was concerned anyway, even dressed in those old-fashioned suits he used to favour, but now…

Crowley sighed and pinned his eyes back to the road ahead – it wasn't wise to get distracted now that they were doing everything the human way, least of all whilst driving along the narrow countryside roads. The mixture of feelings brewing inside of him was tricky to deal with. He'd got used to longing. He'd got used to loving Aziraphale, against all odds and beyond all common sense. He'd got used to the unhurried pace they'd been sticking to whilst flirting with each other for the past twenty-two years, the easy-going routine as their relationship unfurled in such a wonderfully, humanly mundane way, step by step. Now, though, it was all jumbled up, his unconditional love for Aziraphale, and his yearning for him, and his fear of both, more profound than he could have ever predicted, his concern and dismay at being unable to take the edge off the pain the angel was experiencing, and his abject terror of the future.

They'd never talked about what had taken place the previous night, and Crowley wasn't sure if he was relieved or unnerved by it. The angel had woken up in his arms, all tousled hair and sleepy warmth, with his breaths and lips on Crowley's chest and his skin sticky hot against Crowley's. Crowley had pressed a kiss to his forehead, abnormally tender to be something bestowed by a demon, and then another one, and then another, until he felt Aziraphale's hand slip all the way from his shoulderblades down to his waist ending up squeezing his hip, fingers splayed over Crowley's buttock. They'd spent a while like that, not talking, just breathing in each other's presence as if it could be snuffed out at any moment, and it very well could have, of course, until the angel's voice pulled Crowley back into the bleary reality of being on the run as he'd said that it might be better if they got going. So they did, and here they were, a few hundred miles away from that night, from something Crowley had been craving like a junkie for centuries, having never spoken a word about what had taken place there at all.

Casting another glance in Aziraphale's direction, Crowley bit his lip and suppressed a sigh, rubbing at the smooth surface of the steering wheel with his thumb, barely conscious he was doing it, something he'd only done to the Bentley before, wishing for something calmingly familiar in this eye of a storm they'd found themselves in. 

That night, they were staying in a small guesthouse in the proximity of the French Atlantic coast, which they'd managed to locate thanks to the road sign the angel had noticed while they were passing through the countryside. It was coming on midnight and they were in bed, the demon reclining against the headrest, with a book he'd grabbed from a supermarket shelf he knew not why, just another pulp fiction he'd never really been much interested in but which, he hoped, might by sheer triviality of its plot somehow give him the so much needed respite from everything that had been happening and help pass the time whilst he would stay awake at night. The angel was curled by his side, facing him, snuggled into the puffy blanket. Crowley was almost certain he'd drifted off into sleep yet devoid of any nightmares – they tended to creep up on him in the small hours, he'd noticed – when Aziraphale pulled him back into reality asking what he was reading, his voice so soft it was hard to tell whether it was curious or miserable.

Crowley looked away from the paperback in his hands shifting his eyes to the angel instead. Aziraphale had sounded sleepy and unusually hoarse, and it sent a shiver on a very fast venture over his body, the sheer realisation that they were indeed sleeping together. Now that he'd been allowed a taste of what it was like, intimacy with the only being in this world he had loved for ages, everything in him begged for more, begged for this constant yearning to be quenched, and begged for love even more so, twice as much in the face of the fact that he didn't really know just what was waiting for them literally around the corner.

"I… " Crowley started but then trailed off, realising he didn't even know the title let alone what the story was about, caught up in fruitless wondering what this was all about. "I haven't even started yet," he murmured apologetically flipping through the pages and then closing the book altogether. Then he slid down along the mattress until his head was resting on the pillow, too, his face on the same level with Aziraphale's. He turned his head a little to give him a sideways glance. "I could read it to you… if you wanted, that is."

Aziraphale didn't reply, not immediately, anyway. His grey eyes – and the more the demon looked into them, the stormier they seemed to become in the soft light around them – bore into Crowley's amber ones, his gaze open and unguarded and so full of raw emotion Crowley found himself suddenly lacking the ability to form syllables and string them together. It was both thrilling and scary just how much neediness was there in Aziraphale's eyes, and he couldn't break the visual contact for the life of him. It was impossible to tell how long they spent in that manner, engaged in a staring contest. Although, Crowley remarked on some detached level of consciousness, it wasn't a contest. There wouldn’t – couldn't – be any winner, so by all means it was not a contest, it was just this wordless communication they'd always been capable of, which had become such an inevitable part of their existence that they'd all but stopped paying any attention to those virtually telepathic conversations they sometimes engaged in.

Crowley's mouth twitched but before he had even a vague idea of what exactly he was planning on saying, Aziraphale's hand moved deftly from underneath the blanket, the soft pad of his index finger pressing in a warning gesture across his lips. Crowley blinked, feeling every square millimetre of the angel's skin against them.

"Don't, my dear," Aziraphale said quietly, preventing him from uttering a single syllable, his eyes momentarily darting to the demon's mouth and then back to his eyes. "I know."

Smiling weakly, Crowley closed his eyes by way of agreement. Aziraphale was right – he had been intending to say that he loved him, true and simple, and they'd have ended up with another utterly unnecessary bloodshed. It would have hurt physically, but it hurt him in a no lesser way to have to refrain from voicing it now that he knew that he had found something that had the potential for substituting that divine love he once had had the chance to feel back in the day before his own Fall and had been craving ever since. He'd always had the angel, though, and just being an undeserving side recipient of his ethereal glow from time to time had already been a lot, had perhaps been what had saved him, too, preventing him from transforming into a typical representative of Hell, and turning him instead into… Crowley still didn't quite know what he was, Hell's major fuckup or Heaven's outcast or something else entirely, but he did know that he loved Aziraphale. Maybe the angel deserved better, Crowley wasn't sure his love was adequate enough and was more than certain it simply wasn't enough to do what once Aziraphale's own divinity had done to him, but his love was all he had and all he could give.

Crowley opened his eyes, locking them with his angel's, that smothered confession stuck painfully half-way up his throat. Aziraphale's hand relocated to cup his cheek, his warmth ever so tangible on Crowley's skin.

"Blesssed to have met you, angel," he whispered instead, the lump in his throat a choking obstacle he had to push his words through. "I'm so sorry it's happening like this."

"Crowley…" Aziraphale murmured, his voice weirdly thick, and the demon waited till he would come up with something else, but nothing followed.

Instead, he let his hand slip off his cheek, brushing the side of his throat on the way, which made Crowley shiver, until it came to rest on his chest. In a heartbeat, the angel's fingers were distractedly worrying the upper button of Crowley's pyjamas shirt, and it took the demon a very long while to register what exactly Aziraphale was doing. When he did manage to figure it out, the upper button had already been undone and the tips of the angel's fingers were leaving featherlight caresses on the bare skin of his chest.

Almost paralysed, Crowley shifted his gaze to Aziraphale's hand, swallowed and then pinned it back to the angel's face, so deadly serious in his determination. His eyes seemed to be a darker grey now, perhaps because of the way his pupils had dilated, and Crowley found himself drowning in them, in their tenderness, but there was something else to it, too, something more primal and rawer and distinctly physical. The demon's heart missed a beat and then seemed to try to amend for it upping its pace to a drumroll.

It probably had no right to give him such a surprise, given that he'd been a demon for six millennia and should be able to recognise such things, but it did all the same, the depth of the desire in the angel's eyes almost literally taking his breath away.

"Should have done it long ago," Aziraphale murmured ever so quietly, a voiced answer to an unasked question, and then another button on Crowley's pyjamas was popped undone.

Crowley swallowed, unable to take his eyes off the angel, his heart hammering in his chest. He could actually see his own ribcage reverberate in tune with its staccato rhythm beneath it.

And then it was the third button, and the forth, and the fifth, and then there was his angel moving in, moving closer, his warm hand running a caress across Crowley's chest and down his twitching stomach, and then Aziraphale was somehow – inexplicably – on top of him, straddling his hips in a decidedly _unangelic_ manner – but of course, he was no angel anymore – and Crowley could feel the very essence of his very _male_ body pressing against his own crotch, growing harder by the moment.

Crowley let out a surprised gasp and then Aziraphale's lips were on his own and the world around them ceased to exist, just like that, in the blink of an eye and a single hushed breath, disappearing in a quintessence of Aziraphale's scent in his nose, taste on his lips and weight of his body on his own. It was only by the sheer force of will that he made himself stay where he was and not pounce back on Aziraphale as the latter pulled back a little to look down at him. Because, as far as Crowley was concerned, if Aziraphale didn't look positively heavenly now, there simply was no such thing as Heaven.

Oh, but he wanted it, wanted him, wanted so much. He wanted it all and he wanted it now, bless that insufferable song that had been nagging at him for the past almost thirty years, and he hardly knew where to start. He hadn't expected it to be happening in such circumstances, never like this. Yet it was, and, breathless with emotion, balancing on the edge of suffocation because no matter how deeply he pulled in Aziraphale's scent, it wasn't enough, Crowley was determined to love the angel the best he could. He wasn't sure the best he could was the best Aziraphale deserved – because after all Aziraphale had done for him, he deserved much, much more – but it was all he had.

Lithely, true to his nature, Crowley gracefully swapped their positions so that now it was him sitting astride the angel's hips. Aziraphale gulped, looking dazed and caught off guard, hands coming to rest on Crowley's upper arms, but his eyes locked with the demon's remained warm and full of anticipation so alien on his face that for a while Crowley could do nothing but stare back at him, captivated. Then, still not certain he wasn't dreaming it all, he slid down along Aziraphale's legs, palms tracing the outlines of the angel's body as he did so. His neck, his shoulders, his pyjamas clad arms, until he found his hands and squeezed them tightly. Kneeling there on the soft white mattress in between Aziraphale's now spread legs, Crowley kissed the hands that had saved his life. He kissed every single finger on those hands. Kissed Aziraphale's palms and then he kissed the inner sides of his wrists and looked up only upon hearing his own name, articulated in a soft, tremulous voice.

Aziraphale was looking at him, his eyes open wide, and now there was more of that raw emotion in them, something that turned that peculiar fire kindling both in the depths of Crowley's stomach and in his chest into a blazing inferno. 

"Is it wrong to want you so much after all that's happened?" he whispered, which made his normally pleasantly polite voice of a well-educated librarian sound drastically different. It was low, hoarse, and, oh yes, there was plenty of something that couldn't be mistaken for anything but desire.

_Welcome to the dark side, angel_, Crowley thought with a certain amount of bitterness, _where wanting is the only right thing to do_. 

"No," he murmured instead, swallowing with trouble as he found himself being drawn and enchanted by those magnetic grey eyes. "No, angel, it's not wrong at all. Could be nothing wrong about _this_."

"Please?" Aziraphale said – pleaded, really – and Crowley found himself unable to resist what he'd been consciously trying to suppress for almost one thousand years, the love-lust mixture he felt for Aziraphale. 

It had been way too long since he'd first realised it was what it was, way too long for anyone to have to bear the unrequited feeling. He hadn't dared to be the reason of the Fall of the only soulmate he had – and wasn't it funny how temptations in their relationship had always worked the other way around, a celestial being seducing a poor sod of a demon and hardly even being aware of it. This, what they were about to do now, had been out of question for ages because Crowley had always known that he cared about his own adversary way too much to do anything which could potentially make him come to harm. He wouldn't have forgiven himself if Aziraphale had had to suffer the dire consequences of actions dictated by his nature, by his ever present, unquenchable, want.

And now, nothing he did could cause Aziraphale's Fall because angels simply didn't Fall twice. There was no need for curbing his feelings or desires any longer, there was nothing wrong, nothing _left_ to be wrong. Not more wrong than it already was, anyway. At least that's what Crowley was desperately telling himself. Aziraphale wanted him. Aziraphale asked him to. Aziraphale was lying on the bed beneath him, eyes huge and glowing and pleading, for someone's sake. Surely, he wasn't doing anything wrong now?

Crowley was going to take it slow tonight, and not only because he was determined to live through and savour every single moment of what he'd hopelessly yearned for so long, but because tonight it was more about Aziraphale than about himself, and what Aziraphale needed most of all was love. Technically, he was not an angel any more, but being a demon made craving love even more desperate. Who if not Crowley would know it so well? He also knew that he was able to give it, the intelligence he'd been at first terrified and then ashamed of, until he'd finally reconciled with it. He didn't know about other demons; maybe Aziraphale was right, maybe he really possessed that thrice-blessed spark of goodness he loved to be on about so often, but that didn't really matter in the great scheme of things. What did was that he wanted to _love_ Aziraphale, and he was hell bent on doing so no matter what he'd have to pay for it, and he would, he knew, because now that he'd said it once, the words were hard to keep back.

Still kneeling in between the angel's pyjamas clad legs, Crowley started with the smallest things – the buttons on Aziraphale's shirt. One by one, he undid them all, starting at the collar and deliberately popping them open, one at a time. He took his time to notice the creamy quality of the exposed skin on Aziraphale's chest, covered with sparse golden hairs. Those hairs made an amused smile tug at the corners of his lips – that was his angel in a nutshell, perfect in his human corporation, along with his rebellious curls, which he could easily tame into behaviour but stubbornly wouldn't; the glasses he often wore even though his eye-sight was impeccable; the delicate web of wrinkles across his brow and around his eyes and his somewhat uneven teeth, which only gave his smile a more endearing look; that little belly that made him seem decidedly human and that Crowley had the chance to finally behold as the buttons on Aziraphale's shirt were getting undone. 

Nibbling at his lower lip, he let the tips of his index and middle fingers trace a delicate line from the gentle hollow between the angel's clavicle all the way down to the utterly unnecessary navel, which still was there and was effectively turning Crowley's brains into mush. Aziraphale sighed and shuddered under his teasing fingers, his hands clawing at the cheap washed out cotton of the bed linens as Crowley pushed his shirt off his shoulders, the material sliding off them with a barely audible whisper. Aziraphale's chest rose and fell slightly more unevenly beneath Crowley's smart fingers that were studying his unveiled torso. It was true, he certainly was not among the fittest people – and creatures – in the world, but the look of pudginess was definitely exaggerated by the outrageously outdated jackets he used to be so fond of wearing. He did look a bit soft around the edges, Crowley noted licking his lips, but those protruding collar and shoulder bones suggested that his corporeal form tended to gravitate more towards slenderness than towards plumpness. Besides, there surely were outlines of rope-tight muscle visible under his skin.

"You're a sight, angel," Crowley murmured, letting his index fingers hook underneath the waistband of Aziraphale's trousers, the very physical manifestation of the angel's desire prominent beneath the thin fabric. Crowley's smile grew hungrier as his eyes darted momentarily to it. "A masterpiece."

Aziraphale's face flushed gently, but that suited him just fine, giving his skin a healthy blush and taking away that deathly pallid look. One of his hands came to rest against Crowley's cheek, his thumb tracing a line along his cheekbone. His eyes were tantalising, his plump lips sensual and begging for a kiss. Crowley swallowed, then turned his head, just enough to kiss Aziraphale's palm again, and locked his gaze with the angel's again.

"Have you ever…?" he began, and then, after a brief pause, huffed; still ridiculously hurt, still jealous of the woman who had not been alive for more than a millennium, still wondering if there had been others, too. "Oh yes, of course, you have."

"Not with anyone I loved as much as I love you," Aziraphale murmured, his gaze direct, open and so nakedly genuine, so unbearably loving, so incredibly full of desire.

Crowley winced, almost able to feel the edge of Aziraphale's pain upon speaking words of love out loud. He wanted to tell Aziraphale not to say that, tell him he knew. He wanted to tell Aziraphale he didn't deserve it anyway. Wanted to tell him he loved him, too, more than his demonic soul had ever felt comfortable with. He wasn't able to articulate any of those.

"Come here," Aziraphale whispered. "There's no reason not to, not anymore."

And Crowley did, and as he leant down to press a soft, wet kiss to the angel's lips, he more felt rather than heard a hushed sigh, a plea, _'Make me forget'_ murmured against his own mouth, and, with relief that washed through him, he knew he could do that much, even if just temporarily.

The sensation of Aziraphale's skin on his own was addictive, making him crave its touch everywhere, making him writhe and squirm against his lover, gasping for breath, suffocating from how wonderfully warm and real and fragrant it was. It smelt of Aziraphale, of his books and the dust in his bookshop and fresh ink, of cinnamon sticks and polished wood, of hot tea and woollen sweaters and summer sun, the quintessence of everything which defined comfort and safety. There were Aziraphale's curls tickling his cheeks and lips and the inner sides of his wrists. There were Aziraphale's lips, pliant and wet and decidedly not demonic. There was his tongue in Crowley's mouth, carefully tracing the sharp points of his canines, and it was turning Crowley into a needy, shaking mass of a very infatuated demon. There was that soft press of belly against his own hollow one, and then Aziraphale's legs were on both sides of him and they were squeezing his hips, pulling him closer, and suddenly they both were totally naked _down there_, and Crowley could feel the barely-there, tickling touch of hair against his thigh and a much more substantial sensation of a hard, hot, throbbing flesh.

It shouldn't have overwhelmed him as much as it did – after all, Aziraphale was a man-shaped being of the world, so he did have a cock to him, and quite the size, judging by the attractive outlines he had been able to spy underneath the angel's distinctly unattractive trousers and confirmed by Crowley's own impression from the night before; and besides, he'd known for quite some time that Aziraphale liked him, too, in that very primordial, physical, way humans liked each other. What he still couldn't have imagined even in his wildest dreams – well, screw that, it was an outright lie because he'd spent many a sleepless night while being tangled into sweaty sheets doing just that, imagining Aziraphale at various stages of undress doing all kinds of wonderfully wicked things to him – what he really couldn't have imagined was how ridiculously physical it would be. 

Aziraphale rocked his hips, and Crowley dropped his head into the crook of his neck, muffling a deep, needy groan. He could feel the warm moisture against his belly, and he had no idea whose it was because their cocks were squeezed tight in between their bodies. He laughed dazedly, the laugh somehow drowning in a plaintive moan and then dying down completely as his lips found Aziraphale's. He wriggled against the angel with all the grace of a snake, driving them both breathless. They panted, found their breaths again, held on to each other more tightly, kissed and went at it again and again.

They made love slowly, dragging the agonising moments of pleasure for as long as they could, turning them into a sweetest eternity. Two humans wouldn't have been able to endure it for so long, but only wearing the human form doubtlessly helped the matters, and so it went on and on, languidly, gracefully, sensuously. They mostly kept quiet, too, as if both were afraid to scare off this little mutual happiness found in the safe haven of a French guesthouse in the middle of nowhere.

Sometime in what felt like another lifetime they reached the climax together, making Crowley let out noises which, a few millennia ago, he would have considered humiliating and utterly unacceptable for a demon that had at least an ounce of self-respect left, but now it didn't matter, too. Everything ceased to matter, everything apart from Aziraphale's arms thrown around his shoulders, his trembling voice calling his, Crowley's, name, calling him _'love'_, calling him _'his'_ and then evolving into a softest moan of pleasure as his body broke in spasms and shivers of this long-awaited, exhilarating release. Crowley followed him over the edge a mere heartbeat later, his body collapsing on top of him as his mind continued its plunge into a bottomless velvety void, the very definition of safety, where there was nothing but the feeling of Aziraphale's skin, so damp and so hot, and the sound of his voice, quiet and panting and so _dear_.

Time stretched immeasurably, and Crowley let himself bask in this syrupy post-coital languidness like in a pool of molasses, a blissful while of forgetfulness. Later, much later when he would finally find his breath and get in touch with his ability to think more or less coherently, he would think that he was already damned, but he'd be damned again if everything about his angel felt anything but purely divine. He'd never before thought that making love could feel like this, this heightened and sensational, but perhaps it was exactly because of that – because he had never before made _love_ to anyone, his only drive in those lonely years he'd spent trying to make peace with the fact that Aziraphale and him were never destined to happen being his desire to subdue the lust he was feeling, scratch that itch to alleviate it, even though he'd known perfectly well nothing would be able to do that, no one but Aziraphale. Presently, he could feel Aziraphale's heart beating right underneath his cheek, every single thud vibrating against his lips, and once again he found himself unable to overcome the sheer shock of the unfairness of what had happened. Here he was, his perfect, glowing, kindest angel, all warm and soft and so horrendously gentle, so how could he possibly be a Fallen one?

Crowley's fingers trifled with the strands of Aziraphale's tangled curls. He desperately didn't want to face the reality; he wished he could simply remain like this, with his eyes closed and with his lips pressed to Aziraphale's skin, being held in his angel's embrace, being soothed by his presence, feeling safe and sated, listening to him say that everything was ineffable, believing him that everything truly was. Forever wouldn't be enough for that.

But it wasn't like that, was it? It was unlikely that they did have forever now.

Cautiously, Crowley rolled off Aziraphale and stretched languidly by his side, his chest and stomach and his softening flesh pressed tightly against the angel's warm body, all the mess they'd made drying on his skin, which perhaps should feel unpleasant but weirdly wasn't, just another evidence of what they had done, the messy testament of the purest feeling he'd ever had. His leg hooked its way around Aziraphale's hips, and it all felt so breathtakingly good that some part of him wanted to let the sweet oblivion take over, to surrender to it, remaining here in this safe place of the angel's embrace until Kingdom Come.

The other part of him was rather adamant that he remained awake and on guard, so Crowley opened his amber eyes and did just that, guarding his angel's troubled sleep until the quickening dawn dissipated his nightmares. He wished for peace desperately, for an eternity like this, for a chance to go back home and sleep in their own bed, together, for Aziraphale saying that he loved him without having to choke on his own blood all the time, for a chance to atone for what he'd made Aziraphale do, for it was all because of him, wasn't it? Crowley swallowed the lump in this throat, both inexplicably grateful to his angel for saving his life and immeasurably sorry he'd had to Fall for it, protecting his own adversary, one good-for-nothing demon he'd had bad luck to fall in love with ages ago.

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *'Spinning song' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds


	7. Chapter 7

_Oh babe we're on the run, we're on the run, we're on the run_   
_Halfway down the Pacific Coast_   
_Well I left you sleeping like a ghost in your wounds_   
_Darling your dreams are your greatest part_   
_I carry them with me in my heart_   
_Darling your dreams are your greatest part_   
_I carry them with me in my heart_   
_Somewhere, don't know.*(c)_

***********

Over the following few weeks, they drove through France and then Spain and Portugal, paying only a flying visit to some places, spending as long as a few days in others and ignoring some completely. They walked the streets which both of them knew way more intimately than most of their citizens ever would. They visited the Bordeaux Wine Museum and went to the National Ballet performance in Madrid, they drank wine and ate local specialities in Salamanca, they watched the sunsets on the cliffs of Nazare in Portugal, and they talked about the past and the times they'd had and had a few laughs, reminiscing, almost like they'd always done it before. At night, Crowley did the best he could to love his angel to a troubled sleep, and when the morning didn't fail to come time after time, it found him reading in bed as his dearest friend and soulmate would finally find peace in his presence as the first rays of the rising sun lit up roofs of houses, mountain tops or tree crowns.

What never found its way into their conversations, however, was future. It was way safer to revive the past, no matter how painful it seemed, than to imagine what the future held for them. All they had was _now, _and, in a way, it was sweet, giving them a taste of what, perhaps, humans had to go through on a daily basis given the fleeting nature of their lives. It would be a nice experiment on condition that one day, they could put a stop to it and just go back to the life they were accustomed to, Aziraphale being an angel and Crowley being a demon, them messing people around just occasionally, more for the sake of keeping in shape rather than really influencing anyone's life, their efforts really cancelling out each other's impact anyway. It might be sweet if Crowley didn't miss London terribly, with its notorious weather and eternal traffic jams. It might be sweet if his angel was still an angel, hell, it might still be good if the angel wasn't an angel anymore but was okay with it, which he obviously wasn't no matter how hard he was trying to pretend that he was. More and more sadness lodged in the depths of Aziraphale's eyes as days went by, sadness which was more profound than what it looked like, Crowley knew. It would be alright if he was any good at alleviating it somehow, but he wasn't, not by a long shot. 

*****

Aziraphale and Crowley were occupying a small table outside a tiny family-run restaurant in a quaint fishing village nestled between two rocky outcrops of Portugal's stretch of Atlantic coast as twilight was settling down over the world, the air filled with intensified fragrances of the early autumn night. Most of the restaurant's regular customers – mainly elderly folks – resided inside, escaping from the evening chill that crept from the ocean, but outside along with them there were a young couple and a family with two small kids. All of them, as if by intuition, preferred to keep away from the two men of undefinable age who were, judging from the look of it, hell bent on getting themselves properly drunk.

One had a cloud of blond curls on his head, mild manners and eyes of such pale grey quality as if all the colour had been sucked out of them, and when the last rays of the setting sun lit up his face, his irises looked practically transparent. Despite this oddity, he still seemed amiable enough and very British, dressed in light linen pants and a blue, short-sleeved button up, rather slim but with a hint of a belly visible beneath his sensible shirt. One could describe him as having reached his early forties, but once those practically translucent eyes of his chanced to meet with your own, they struck you as being so haunted and so ancient it was hard to hold his gaze.

The only person who could withstand it was his counterpart – or perhaps his partner, judging by the intimate glances and barely conscious, subtle, touches they exchanged time and again. The second man appeared to be slightly younger, all sinuous limbs which moved with odd, languid grace, good cheekbones, raven black hair carelessly swept off his forehead and a thin, ironic smirk twisting his lips. Beneath it all, however, if one was willing to look hard enough, hiding behind the insolent attire, there was something nervous and tragic and awfully forlorn, something which, coupled with the despair in his inhuman eyes that would be visible had he bothered to take off his sunglasses, made him look just as ancient and as haunted as his counterpart.

Together, they made an odd couple, an affable man who looked like he'd just gone out of his own bookshop for an evening stroll and a glass of wine in the fresh air, and a younger one who resembled somebody just out of a spy movie, cocksure and every bit as audacious. At the second glance – that was, if one had enough willpower to give them that second glance – the two men were strikingly similar_, _not only because they were strange, but because they both were so profoundly sorrowful_._

For a small swallow fluttering from one table to another, from one bannister to the next, there was nothing particularly striking about the two beings. It knew _what_ they were, and it was here to watch.

*****

"Do you ever miss ‘em, angel?" Crowley asked, words slightly slurred.

It was a few weeks into September, warm and sunny here in the south. They were still, against all odds, alive and in one piece and together, undisturbed by anyone from either Above or Below, so probably getting just a bit tipsy wasn't such a big crime, after all. What Crowley actually hoped for against his common sense was that alcohol would finally manage to take the edge off things. He knew it only had a very short-term influence, but even that much seemed good.

"What?" Aziraphale asked, pouring both of them more wine. He also looked like he was a bit in his cups but his practised hand didn't tremble to let a single drop go to waste. "Books?"

"No," Crowley shook his head. "Yes, I mean, ‘em too, but no. Your folk." He made a gesture, spreading his arms wide and then swinging them up and down. What he had aimed at was imitating a celestial being. What he ended up with looked more like he was about to fall off his chair. "_Them_. Generally."

Aziraphale carefully put the bottle back onto the table, and after what looked like a brief consideration shook his head. He suddenly looked distinctly soberer and much sadder. Crowley blessed under his breath, curing his own stupidity. He should have kept his mouth shut, for someone's sake. He shouldn't have drunken that much in the first place.

"No," the angel finally sighed, and Crowley winced – Aziraphale indeed sounded perfectly sober now. "No, I don't think I do. Not really anyway. It's been a long while since I stopped calling Heaven a home, you know…" he trailed off, fiddling with his napkin, then shrugged.

Aziraphale raised his eyes to look at the demon and smiled, but it was a far cry from your normal kind of smile. It wasn't even Aziraphale's own version of a scowl – that _'I'm so totally done with your nonsense'_ kind of smile. It was filled with bitterness, and even though he was apparently doing his best to soften it, way too much was showing on his face.

"I'm sorry, angel," was all Crowley managed to say, and, oh, someone knew he _was_.

He'd never wanted Aziraphale to Fall, not even in those early days when every single time they had run into each other had ended up in a fight. More than that, even back then – he'd never have admitted it to himself at those times, of course – he had known he would do all he could to prevent Aziraphale from Falling if the threat ever arose. Yet, when it had occurred, many a millennium later, all he had been able to do was to lie sprawled beneath the protection of his angel's wings and hiss in pain. Crowley wished he could remedy that somehow, but all he was apparently able to do was to just be sorry.

"Crowley," Aziraphale smiled again, but this time it came out much softer than the previous one, even if still full of sadness. His hand covered the demon's one on the table and gave it a squeeze. "I made my conscious choice myself, didn't I? And I'd make it all over again, no matter what the cost."

Crowley swallowed and then nodded, reluctantly. He was totally sober now and he wished like hell that he could drink himself into oblivion and wake up back in Mayfair – or even better, back in the bookshop, on Aziraphale's so tattered but so well-loved sofa, wake up to a roomful of light and radiance, wake up to his angel still an angel and all the previous days they'd lived through being nothing but a nightmare, already dissipating into an incomprehensible string of unconnected images. And if that couldn't be achieved, he wanted to be of some help, at least, but, judging by Aziraphale's haunted eyes, he wasn't quite succeeding in that particular task.

"Just how bad is it, angel?" he asked, turning his hand so that his palm was pressed against Aziraphale's. His thumb brushed over his knuckles, gently. He was vaguely aware that the mother of the family who were sitting nearby was giving them both a mildly curious look. He didn't care.

Aziraphale's fair eyebrows rose just a tiny bit. "Shouldn't you know, my dear?"

Crowley shrugged and lowered his eyes, not able to bring himself up to answering. Perhaps, he did know, and perhaps he didn't. He had Fallen himself, all right, but for almost as long as he could trace back his demonic existence, Aziraphale had been there for him, that solid, bright, loving presence, radiating goodness and holiness and soothing the acute absence of love inside of him which had hurt the most back in the day. Now, after six millennia, Crowley had pretty much forgotten what that initial, divine, love he had suffered without so much was, but he'd been very fortunate to know the other sort of it. He didn't miss _His Love_ anymore – how could he miss what he hardly remembered, and why would he need it when there was love he'd found in his angel and then the love he'd found in _himself_, closing, filling that sucking void inside of his being.

If only he could repay Aziraphale for everything the angel had done for him, Crowley thought wretchedly, his eyes still pinned to the red and white checked tablecloth. But there was no chance in Hell for it, was there? He was a demon, after all. He could love Aziraphale all he pleased, in that somewhat crippled way of his, the only way he knew how to, but he'd never have that soothing, alleviating, pain-relieving aura about him, the one that attracted his tortured soul to his angel in the first place, the one that had always managed to ward his nightmares away.

He wanted to ask Aziraphale what it was like for him, this Falling from His grace here on Earth, whether his presence helped in any way or if it only hurt the angel even more, but paranoid as he'd ever been, Crowley didn't dare voice any questions he had. He didn't ask for he was afraid of the answers he might get. What he did instead of the answer to Aziraphale's question was take his soft hand in both of his, bring it to his lips and kiss it, silently.

*****

From Portugal they moved back to Spain and then to Italy along France's scenic Mediterranean routes, Crowley insisting that they visit an old acquaintance of his. The man, he said to Aziraphale as they drove along the winding road in the foothills of Italian Alps, not exceeding the speed limit, a thing Crowley had had a hard time getting used to but managed to in the end, was his loyal tailor, had been for as long as he'd worked in that industry, just like his father before that, and his father's father before him. His suits cost a fortune, and Crowley had always paid him generously, but the demon decided to hold that part back. Aziraphale wasn't quite as Aziraphale-like in questions of reasonable money disposal as he'd been, but Crowley still thought that he wouldn't approve of such careless investments. Or rather, if he were hard-pressed to admit it, he actually _hoped_ that Aziraphale wouldn't approve of it, just like in the old days, but he dreaded that now the odds were that the angel simply did not care anymore.

Crowley tried to reason himself into believing that it didn't even matter, whether he approved of his excessive spending on extravagant clothes or not, but something deep inside of him, that part which had spent the past couple of months since the dreadful night back in Soho twisting and writhing in actual remorse and self-accusation for the inability to be of any help, let alone for actually forcing Aziraphale to protect him at the cost of his divinity, that part was terrified that Aziraphale was changing. Crowley, who'd spent his whole life as a counterpart of the adversary force, as the second, integral, half of the whole phenomenon, whose entire existence had been founded on the balance between two equal forces, the good and the evil, who'd wiled mostly for the purpose of being thwarted later – otherwise where was the fun in it all, it wasn't the matter of the final result, it'd always been the question of enjoying the process – Crowley found himself tittering on the brink of panic at the mere thought that this entire opposite driving force was now lost, or was being lost. He found himself not knowing how to function without it, and the mere prospect was so terrifying he preferred to try to avoid thinking about it altogether.

In Lecce, their clothes quest turned out successfully, the old man being as meticulous and professional as he'd ever been. Crowley and Aziraphale spent a few more days there but when a disturbingly increasing number of Italian women – and quite a few Italian men, too – started to pay the angel way too much attention for Crowley's liking, the demon decided it was high time they left Italy behind and moved on to some other place. It was simply ridiculous how, all of a sudden, Aziraphale had started to provoke spontaneous cases of flirting directed his way, sometimes innocent enough and sometimes not quite so, even despite Crowley's glowering and scowling presence just next to him. And the funny thing was, Aziraphale was hardly doing anything to provoke it. As far as strangers were concerned, he just tended to be his immaculately polite self, calling everyone a dear and smiling his amiable smile, nothing really different from what he'd done before. It couldn't be denied, of course, that the angel had acquired quite a semblance of shape by now and what looked like some taste, at least in the way his jeans or light linen pants combined with shirts whose upper buttons were left undone and whose sleeves were rolled up to expose his forearms looked on him, and those were the forearms of a being that once had wielded a flaming sword with ease. Crowley wondered just how many souls the angel had managed to somehow tempt along the way without even being aware of it, and the thought seemed both amusing and distressing.

"Do you know that you're turning heads, angel?" Crowley inquired once, curious, as they were sitting inside a tiny pasticceria in the heart of Rome, having a late breakfast.

Aziraphale gave him a rather distracted glance, looking up from the Tiramisu he'd been nursing unenthusiastically for the past twenty minutes or so. That was another thing which disturbed Crowley to his very core – Aziraphale had never before been anything _but_ very enthusiastic about desserts, hence his sturdy build which was now slowly transforming into something resembling quite slim. His lack of interest in so many things, starting from his precious books and to his beloved desserts, and now his slow but inevitable loss of weight was starting to worry Crowley more and more. He was loath to admit it to himself, but sometimes he simply couldn't help wondering whether a day would come when Aziraphale would lose his interest in him, too. Every time the nagging fear occurred the demon pushed it away with vehemence. He couldn't bear the thought of that.

"I can count at least three humans giving you sideway glances, only here," back in the café, he smirked by way of explanation.

Aziraphale gave the surroundings a slightly absent look, lacking even a tiny bit of interest, and Crowley couldn't quite figure out what he was worried by more – humans' interest in his angel, or Aziraphale's total absence thereof. Jealous as this attention made him feel, Crowley reckoned he'd still prefer Aziraphale to react to it in one way or another. The indifference was devastating.

"You're probably misinterpreting, my dear," Aziraphale said, meanwhile, poking at the tiramisu with his fork. "There's nothing about me that has the potential for turning heads, don't be silly."

Yet, of course, there was. Crowley let the topic go but kept a close look on everyone who dared stare at his angel, scowling and trying to fit every demonic cliché known to humanity the best he could, except, maybe, for manifesting some horns and claws.

Aziraphale didn't mind moving on from Italy to somewhere else. He did mind very little as of late, in fact, and sometimes Crowley almost wished he would start some infuriating argument, would start disagreeing, would start moralising and being insufferably – _ineffably_ – dusty, fussy, sturdy, brilliant angel that he'd once been. But Aziraphale did not argue, accepting whatever idea Crowley would come up with. And he didn't look quite as stuffy, dusty and insufferable anymore, either.

As far as the angel's lack of disagreement was concerned, it wasn't all that bad, of course, but for some reason, it was taking its toll on Crowley, and sometimes – more and more often as the time went by and no one still not only hadn't found them, but hadn't merely got in touch with them – he was finding himself brooding, not quite satisfied anymore with just staying alive. Days weren't too bad – they dined in restaurants and went places, they drank a little wine here and there, and in the evenings, he made love to Aziraphale, which was the best part of it all. No, those times weren't half so bad, but the gloominess crept on, irresistibly, usually at the darkest hours of the night; those small hours before the next day's dawn lit the sky in the east; those hours when most deaths and suicide attempts tended to occur. Crowley had long stopped believing that it was something only humans were susceptible to, though. Apparently, it was intrinsic for the entire Universe and all the creatures therein, and demons certainly were not an exception to the general rule.

Every single night, Crowley wished he could just close his eyes and drift away on the waves of drowsiness, lulled into oblivion by Aziraphale's regular breaths next to him, and be temporarily spared the necessity to stay on guard and plan ahead every single step they took, but even more so spared the necessity to endure the oppressive thoughts the night brought in its wake. Lying next to Aziraphale after they'd made love was good, cuddling and holding him was even better, but falling asleep next to him was one guilty pleasure Crowley simply couldn't afford to enjoy. He had to stay awake, just in case someone finally found them. He didn't know about Heaven, but he certainly didn't believe that Hell was going to let them get away with it. The fact they hadn't contacted them yet was suspicious in itself. Aziraphale would have probably objected to his nightly vigils – at least the old version of Aziraphale would have – but he didn't know just how exactly Crowley had been spending his nights, and Crowley intended for it to remain that way. He'd promised the angel he'd do his best to protect them both, and he wasn't going to steer clear of it even if it required giving up on one of his most favourite pleasures – sleep.

So, the longest and the darkest hours of the night, as Aziraphale lay naked and warm beside him, resting in blissful unconsciousness until another nightmare roughly brought him back into the harsh reality, belonged solely to Crowley, and on those nights his thoughts were positively driving him insane. Back in the beginning, he'd thought that the oppressive quality to them would abate with time, that was, if they were allowed time at all. They'd make do with what they had after a while, he'd thought, they'd get adjusted and would move on; at least as long as neither Up Above or Down Below found them before that. He'd love Aziraphale, and he'd guard him and he'd support him and he'd just be there for him, day and night, and one day they'd probably get used to this new routine and new way of living and everything that had happened would be forgotten just like those nightmares he'd had after his own Fall, nothing but ghosts now. It would work out somehow, Crowley believed; the universe would take care of him, just as it had always done, while he was taking care of his angel.

But the further they went, the more it seemed to him that, probably, this time the universe was not giving a toss. No, they were still all right and in one piece and, miraculously, there was no chase, no Heaven and Hell combined search party, no obstacles whatsoever. Everything was running smoothly, but still Crowley knew – _felt_ – that something was wrong. Aziraphale was not happy, even though he'd been trying hard to persuade Crowley – and probably himself, too – that he was. He'd smile at the demon, and laugh at his jokes and drink wine and listen to him read him books before sleep and walk hand in hand along deserted beaches, and he'd allow Crowley to love him at night. It was good, of course, but there still was something to Aziraphale's smiles now, or maybe there was something missing.

Sadness had settled down firmly in his faded grey eyes, and Crowley had absolutely no idea how to make it go away. He knew that some part of it was caused by the severance of the bond connecting Aziraphale with Him, but he also believed his angel when he said time and time again that he'd do what he'd done all over again to save him, and that vicious circle was apparently getting the best of him.

Crowley blamed himself. He was aware that it wouldn't help him solve the existing problem, but he couldn't help it. The only thing he was capable of was love Aziraphale, and he did, someone help him, he had been trying his _blessedest_, the extent to which he could never have imagined he would ever be capable of loving, and even that apparently wasn't enough. Maybe he wasn't doing it right. Maybe it took an actual_ angel _with all their holiness and divinity and that unconditional ability to _love_ to heal the soul of a Fallen one; maybe he had never even had the chance and would never have, at that, of giving Aziraphale back all he'd received from him in their six millennia of knowing each other, no matter how much he wanted to be able to do that.

He wished he could pray to someone but doubted anyone would bother to listen to one lesser demon on the run, one who, instead of Falling with splendour, had simply sauntered vaguely downwards as an angel, actually not having a blessed idea of what exactly he was doing going down that road; one who, having become a demon, had fallen for the second time, this time in love, and not with anyone but with his _adversary_; one who, despite loving that said adversary with every single bit of his flawed soul, was apparently unable to help him now. He was a screw up, and he'd lost his faith in both Heaven and Hell. He hadn't been a part of the former for so long he'd forgotten what it had felt like Up There, and he hadn't been much in the latter; and, suddenly, lying in an alien bed in a tiny cabin tucked away in the Alps, with Aziraphale curled against his naked chest, he felt so utterly, acutely, unbearably _lonely _he wanted to scream. Something was eating away at he only being he'd ever really treasured in this world, and he couldn't do a single blasted thing about it, couldn't even ask anyone for help or advice. The only one who could have possibly given it to him had been Aziraphale himself.

Somewhere high above the sleeping world, sitting crouched on the windblown porch of the cabin they'd rented for the night, hands dug deep into his jet-black, now rather longish hair, one forlorn demon was desperately trying to choke back the tears that were threatening to choke him. He was obviously losing the battle because a few salty drops brimmed over and dropped down onto the old, timeworn, stone steps.

"_Fuck_," Crowley cursed under his breath and pulled at his hair some more until the physical pain managed to more or less distract him from the one in his chest. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

And then, right out of the blue and very ill-timed, came the memory from a year or so prior to Aziraphale's Fall, and its vividness was something which broke the proverbial camel's back. In reality, it smashed down Crowley's so scrupulously sculptured self-control like a wrecking ball, leaving him sobbing helplessly on the porch, choking on silent tears from the pain which was worse than Falling, worse than losing His love, worse than that lacerating his mouth every time he uttered words of love. It was the pain caused by a loved one's pain, and the total inability to alleviate it; and Crowley let himself dissolve in it at last. Otherwise, it threatened to suffocate him.

The memory that provoked that outburst took Crowley back in the day when everything had seemed to be going as perfectly as it could be; when, stupidly, Crowley had truly believed they were going to be all right, that the Universe was watching his back while he could concentrate on the only thing he really desired, and that was flirting with his angel.

And just like anything that's truly beautiful, this memory was beautiful in its simplicity. They were in the Bentley, Crowley naturally behind the wheel and Aziraphale occupying the passenger's seat and, as was his old habit, adjusting the reality just so occasional pedestrians managed to get out of Crowley's way in time and the speed cameras along the road indicated the speed just under the limit. Where they were heading was anyone's guess as they'd been hanging around one another way too often to actually keep track of which places they were visiting that day. The only thing Crowley remembered for sure was that it was a sunny day, with the sky above them blue to the point of surreal; celestial blue just like Aziraphale's eyes.

Concerning the Bentley's background music choice, it hadn't undergone any changes over the past years – once Freddy Mercury and his band had hit the radio charts, the Bentley had become a loyal fan, it seemed. The only difference was that, whereas in the pre-Apocalypse years their every song had tended to irritate Crowley to the point of a nervous tic, during the last twenty-something years of constant having to listen to Mercury persuasively singing from the dynamics that _All I can do is surrender to your love_ and that _I can't face this life alone _and that _You're my best friend_ Crowley had never felt the urge to switch it off. He didn't have to, not anymore, because he didn't feel that every single line in each and every song of Queen was exquisitely taunting him and his sorry lovelorn state. Because, miraculously, he wasn't lovelorn anymore, and life was full of hope.

Currently, it was _Somebody to Love_, and Crowley didn't even bother to stop his fingers from tapping against the leather upholstery of the steering wheel. The weather was brilliant, the sun was radiant, the sky above was the colour of his angel's eyes and his angel was sitting right beside him, all wind-blown curls and manicured hands and so very real and so very beautiful and so very _his_. The world was still in its legitimate place, the weather was for once in a lifetime favourable and there was so much to look forward to.

Crowley grinned, barely restraining himself from actually humming along the lines, humming that blasted _Can anybody __find_ _me somebody to looove?! _because it finally seemed his unvoiced prayers had been answered. There was this particular somebody and he was sitting just next to him. Crowley chanced a sidelong glance at his counterpart, still grinning, still tapping his fingers to the beat of the song, and was met with the blue of Aziraphale's smiling eyes, and it spoke volumes, it told Crowley all he needed to know better than words ever could. They were together, and they were going to be all right, and the best was yet to come.

Presently, crouched on the porch against the gales of frigid wind, Crowley cried harder, silently. He wanted that day back, he wanted his angel back, smiling at him with all Heaven's love concentrated in his blue eyes, he wanted that hopeful anticipation of the miracle. Now even more than ever before this unasked-for memory seemed like mockery, taunting him. Because, it seemed, he could never have that day back.

When the initial fit of despair had finally subsided, Crowley composed himself, got up and went back into the cabin. Aziraphale was still asleep, which was good – the last thing he needed right now was the angel seeing him show weakness. He had to remain strong, for Aziraphale's sake if not for his own.

Admittedly, he did not have the right to complain. _It'll never be the way it used to be_, Crowley would remind himself every single time that emptiness in Aziraphale's gaze appeared. _You might as well get used to it and make the most of what you have. Someone knows, you've had your fair share of happiness – happiness which you didn't deserve – over the course of the six millennia you've known each other. _

He'd hold Aziraphale then, silently – because all the words seemed to have been said and repeated by then; and he'd kiss him, his lips, his eyes, his cheeks, his body; and he'd make love to him until the last traces of that loathsome sadness were substituted with sparks of pure desire, taking Aziraphale's oppressive thoughts away and temporarily leaving him seeing and wanting nothing but Crowley. At those moments, everything seemed good. Aziraphale was his, and Aziraphale was there, and for just a while nothing else existed but the two of them and the love and pleasure they were sharing.

And then another morning would dawn, and it would come full circle and start all over again, roads, straight and winding; strange hotels in lands which were both alien and familiar, restaurants and roadside cafes, mountains changing plains changing seaside, but some things remained ever present – the fact that there was no pursuit after them and the constant sadness in Aziraphale's eyes.

*****

In Berlin, Crowley dared to offer the angel to try wiling around a little.

Admittedly, he was less than fond of the idea himself – Aziraphale had always been a bit of a bastard, but he was an angelic bastard, and wiling wasn't – shouldn't be – his business. But then again, they weren't in the situation where they had much choice anymore, or at least it was how it seemed to him. Crowley reasoned that, technically, Aziraphale was now a demon, thus a bad job well done might probably have some potential for lifting up his spirits.

Aziraphale, in his turn, didn't seem to be overly excited about the prospects of actually engaging in anything demonic, but he didn't object to it either, accepting Crowley's logic that this, perhaps, should now become idiosyncratic for his nature. Truth be told, Aziraphale hadn't changed all that much, at least on the outside. His manners were still exceptionally polite and his speech sounded educated and eloquent; his looks had indeed undergone some alterations but, virtually, he still looked like that same not exactly middle-aged but approaching that line bookseller, now dressed with a bit more taste and looking pretty much as divine as he'd ever been.

The very thought of Aziraphale sauntering around corrupting people seemed so utterly wrong it made Crowley feel revolted, but he believed they had to try it. He wondered if this new version of his angel would enjoy any of it at all. He wondered whether the angel's still present gentle manners were only the residue of his former divinity. He wondered whether it was going to fade away as time went by, making him less and less the Aziraphale he'd known for six millennia and turning him into somebody entirely new, and at times like this Crowley wished dearly he could remember something of his own former self.

Had he changed all that much? What colour eyes did he use to have? What had been his vocation before his Fall? Had he had friends? He must have, surely. Then what had become of them? Did they remember him still or had they long forgotten that, once, an angel with the name perhaps resembling something in the lines of _Crowley_ had walked among them? He couldn't remember any of those, and he wondered, with inner horror and sinking feeling deep in his gut, whether there would come a day Aziraphale would change so much that he would no longer want him by his side. They'd been two parts of the whole, each playing his particular part in the great cosmic dance of the universe, but now…

Still, they did give demonic business a try, and to Crowley's genuine amazement – and there was underlying despair which was just as profound – Aziraphale turned out to be quite efficient, perhaps more efficient than Crowley himself had ever been, especially taking into account that present Aziraphale's attempts at practising demonic tricks were, by the looks of it, only half-hearted.

They started with ducks in Tiergarten, where Aziraphale managed to half-drown a few of them in cold blood, while Crowley stared at him, speechlessly, trying to conceal his utter dismay the best he could.

Unnoticed by any of them, settled on the shore of the pond a few metres away there was a drake, watching the entire mayhem from a safe distance and doing all he could to remain as invisible to the two beings as possible – being shamelessly dipped into the water wasn't on the list of his plans for today, and even though he'd endure that stoically, he still preferred to avoid it if he could help it. He listened to his kin quacking disconcertedly every time Aziraphale's attempt to dip them into the water ended up in success, and then watched the dark-haired man-shaped being in dark glasses banish the droplets of water off their feathers while muttering feeble apologies their way.

Later, Aziraphale efficiently provoked a traffic jam, deliberately obeying the traffic regulations on a stretch of the road where every single driver tended to speed. It made a good dozen of people so pissed off that they were sure to spread the irritation and take it out on whomever happened to be around, starting a chain reaction which would rage for a few days before subduing. Had it been any other demon he knew, Crowley would have nodded his approval. As it was, he did the same, remarking in a light-hearted manner that he'd always known Aziraphale was enough of a bastard to be worth liking, but when he turned away from the angel to look into the window from his passenger's seat, his sharp eyeteeth sank into his lower lip, worrying the tender skin until he drew blood. For some reason, witnessing that Aziraphale was a bastard enough failed to invoke any positive emotion in him.

They created some mischief as they went, mostly light stuff, irritating rather than actually corrupting someone until they ended up in one of Berlin's shady night clubs. The angel strode in into one of them like he owned the place, sure and business like, heading straight for the bar stand. Crowley trailed after him, a bit thrown off his game by Aziraphale's sheer self-assurance in the current surroundings, with red lights flickering in tune with the low bassline which pulsated in the semi-darkness like some living breathing being full of desires and with bodies in various stages of undress twisting and turning in the kind of dance which could only be induced by certain substances.

Crowley took a seat in one of the booths, close enough to see the angel, and ordered himself a beer, not sure about how he was feeling about this entire idea. It was too late to take his words back now that Aziraphale had gone along with it. Besides, if it did manage to cheer him up in the end, who was he to protest? The angel, dressed for the occasion in jeans and Crowley's own black t-shirt, which hugged his body just so it managed to attract glances from whichever angle you looked at him. Easily enough, Aziraphale struck up a conversation with the bartender and then his fellow visitor sitting a few stools away to his right, and it did seem like they had an animated discussion on something. Crowley didn't hear what exactly the angel was saying, everything being drowned out by the music, but he could very well imagine the tone of his voice, perfectly articulate and persuasive, pleasant on the ear, planting what had to be seeds of doubt in the minds of his counterparts.

Crowley wondered what it was, anxiously. Temptation? Bad decisions? Dangerous thoughts? He didn't want to go through the possibilities but his mind stubbornly kept suggesting ideas one less pleasant than the other, and all he could do was hope Aziraphale wasn't intrinsically capable of anything particularly malicious. The thought of the angel somehow taking the other side and taking pleasure at spreading evil made him sick to his stomach because it was innately controversial to everything he'd ever believed in.

A while had gone by, perhaps half an hour's worth, maybe three quarters when the man sitting next to Aziraphale leaned in towards him to be able to speak in his ear. Crowley felt a lurch in his stomach, panic mixed with anger mixed with jealousy, his fingers squeezing on the bottle of beer he hadn't really been drinking from so hard his knuckles grew white. When the man's hand unambiguously ended up on Aziraphale's thigh, Crowley was about to get going to put a stop to it. Aziraphale could wile around as much as he pleased, but he wouldn't let anyone put as much as a finger on the angel, let alone give their hands free reign. Crowley had been waiting for that, suffering in solitude convinced he was never going to be allowed to come close let alone touch the angel, for ages, so some drunken strangers in a bar had better keep their hands to themselves. Crowley didn't have time to go anywhere, though, because the next moment Aziraphale politely took his potential date's hand off from his thigh and with a tiny little smile explained something to him. The guy turned around and gave Crowley a glance, half-surprised, half-displeased, and the demon made sure he glared balefully enough in his direction to give him the idea.

As Aziraphale walked back towards the booth Crowley was sitting in, the demon watched him, taken aback by how controversially in and out of place the angel looked here, his halo of curls lit up by the pulsing lights, music blasting around, him wearing those jeans that fit him like a glove and Crowley's own black t-shirt, face drawn and serious, and those ancient eyes looking back at him from the distance, searching. There was little light in them, though, to make Crowley understand it wasn't approval that they sought, but support, and, unbeknownst to himself, the demon let out a sigh of relief knowing before Aziraphale had had a chance to tell him anything that bringing him here must have been a mistake. When the angel reached the booth, Crowley offered him his own beer, silently, and the angel downed half of it in one gulp, looking as if he might get sick any moment now.

They didn't stay there, two outwardly perfectly ordinary visitors, yet perhaps the strangest couple that had ever visited Berlin bars, a former angel who used to be fond of outrageously vintage suites yet was now dressed in tight-fit jeans and an insolently black t-shirt, doing something he wouldn't have forgiven himself for just a few months ago, tempting humans into less than favourable deeds; and a demon, fancy snakeskin shoes and slick black shirt and insolent shades concealing his slit yellow eyes, which were full of controversial mixture of sympathy and dismay, who, as he accompanied his partner towards the exit, sent a thought towards who Aziraphale had spoken to that evening to somehow mitigate the damage done in case it had been. He wasn't certain he could help the matters, but it was worth trying anyway.

Later that night, when Crowley emerged from the ensuite bathroom back into the room – a rather luxurious one since the more time had passed, the less it seemed that someone was still going to pay them a visit that they'd gradually given up on some of precaution – he found Aziraphale still standing at the window and looking out of it at the sleeping city, exactly in the same position he'd left him half an hour or so ago. The only thing that had changed was that the light had been switched off, leaving Aziraphale shrouded in darkness.

Slowly, and with that hatefully familiar sinking feeling in his gut that had become his sworn friend by now, Crowley padded quietly to his angel, bare feet silent on the thick carpet. Tentatively, he put his hands onto Aziraphale's shoulders, but the latter still gave a start, startling Crowley along the way, too, and that sinking feeling in his gut echoed with a painful, sucking emptiness in the depths of the demon's chest.

"I'm sorry," Crowley whispered, letting his hands slide down his angel's arms, and stepped closer until his front was pressed to Aziraphale's back.

The angel didn't reply, but Crowley could tell a sigh heaved but obviously suppressed, and the ache in the centre of his being intensified.

"I'm sorry, angel," he repeated, his voice hushed and hoarse.

He wished he'd never come up with that blasted idea of suggesting that Aziraphale try his demonic tricks in the first place. Deep inside, he suspected that his primary reason hadn't been about trying to cheer Aziraphale up, even though it might have worked, had it been a different angel who'd turned into a different demon. Deep inside, Crowley supposed that what he _really_ wanted to know was just how far from Grace Aziraphale had Fallen, in his selfish attempt to reassure himself that he was still _his_ angel, that the Fall hadn't changed him irreversibly, that he wasn't turning into someone Crowley would later find totally alien.

As it turned out, he was reassured indeed that Aziraphale, demon as he was now, still didn't seem to be particularly fond of causing mischief among unheeding humans, but along with some sort of comfort it had brought in its wake, it also made Crowley feel so utterly disgusted with himself he wanted to howl. Well, if anything, he, as it appeared, hadn't changed much. He was still a demon designed to hurt those around him with flourish. Which brought, in its turn, another realization, one too many, one he'd come to so many times before, one which bothered him on a practically daily basis, one which conveyed that he simply was not tailored to give consolation. Even at times like this, with Aziraphale suffering, Crowley still put his own interests above all, didn't he?

Anxiously, he let his arms wrap around Aziraphale's middle and buried his face into the crook of his angel's neck. His lips left an impotent kiss on his skin, one which certainly could not amend for every wrong he'd done, so Crowley moved until it was his forehead resting against Aziraphale's shoulder instead.

"Forgive me," he muttered, and the words hurt him, too, not as much as love did, of course, but a sincere apology was something which wasn't approved by Hell either.

No reply still came but Aziraphale's warm hand squeezed his forearm, firmly and reassuringly, just as firm and reassuring as his very presence had always been for Crowley.

Later that night, in the darkness, holding the angel close, wanting nothing more than to atone for what he'd asked of him and not quite managing to find the right words, Crowley made love to him the best he could, lavishing kisses and touches and hushed, muffled words against Aziraphale's skin. When, a long while afterwards, they lay entangled into each other's limbs, the best part of the day as far as Crowley was concerned, those moments after making love, because it almost seemed normal then, the sadness in the angel's eyes subdued and substituted by the warm glow of post-coital satiation, the demon remembered something that had surprised him back in that bar.

"Angel?" he called softly, lips brushing the silken curls on top of Aziraphale's head, and when the latter hummed in acknowledgement, he went on. "You seemed awfully familiar with Berlin nightlife scene."

"Not all of those who need salvation while their time away in libraries and theatres," Aziraphale said after a while, so quietly Crowley could barely hear him. "It's clubs now, cabarets before, taverns before that, they go there and you can feel their desperation from a mile away. I used to go there to do my job, just like you."

The demon opened his mouth, desperately wanting to say something, desperately needing to come up with anything which would convey just how sorry he was to have dragged Aziraphale into this stupid venture with temptations. He should have been wiser, but he hadn't been. He never asked Aziraphale to tempt anyone ever again after that, and Aziraphale never showed any desire to, to Crowley's genuine relief.

They moved on, undisturbed.

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Hollywood' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds


	8. Chapter 8

_Well, sometimes a little bit of faith can go a long, long way_   
_ Your soul is my anchor, I never asked to be freed_   
_ Well, sleep now, sleep now, take as long as you need_

_'Cause I'm just waiting for you_   
_ To return.*©_

************

In the six months which followed Aziraphale's Fall, they travelled through a good part of the world avoiding places experiencing a rough patch of particular political or military instability. Visiting them would most probably require one kind of miracle or another, if only for the sake of staying alive since discorporation would entitle them to return to Hell, which was, of course, unacceptable, and neither of them was still willing to attract too much attention to their personas by miracling things left and right. It seemed way less crucial now, half a year later and still nothing from either Heaven or Hell, but they both agreed that better safe than sorry, resorting to tweaking with reality only when it was particularly necessary.

For all the beauty of the world they'd had a chance to behold while on the road, being on the run was an exhausting business, and after months of skipping from place to place on a regular basis, sleeping in alien beds in strange hotels in places which were simultaneously familiar and drastically different from what they'd once been, and with the constant necessity to be on guard, Crowley was finding himself increasingly drained. He was not a Guardian, just your mediocre demon, supposed to tempt and wile and corrupt souls of the innocent. He wasn't supposed to love, and even though he, against all odds, turned out to be able to, it didn't mean he was doing a particularly good job out of it.

During their run from they didn't even know whom, they stayed for a few days in some places and for a few weeks in others, and, assessing their pace on a human scale, they were making a rather leisurely progress. But then again, humans generally needed around three days to get accustomed to new surroundings, and as far as Crowley was concerned, he'd spent the past few hundred years in London and wasn't yet a tiny bit fed up with it. All this _leisurely_ _progress_ was starting to seem to him like one hell of a crazy chase, and now he was beginning to feel more than a bit out of breath.

Both sides' silence was odd, too. They might have been tricked by their keeping below the radar, but Crowley was still inclined to believe that if either Heaven or Hell had really wanted to find them, they would have been found on the very day of Aziraphale's Fall. Against all odds, they hadn't been, and if at the beginning it had seemed a relief, now it was becoming almost as bad as the constant waiting for possible captivity. For one thing, it was giving Crowley hope. It was weak and barely kindling deep inside of him, but it was a hope nonetheless, a hope that maybe, just maybe, they had got away with another one of the big fuck ups, too. That, perhaps, they had finally been left alone. That, probably, they had been spared and given a precious chance to have a life of their own. But Crowley's relationship with hope was a fickle thing – he knew, from bitter experience, that it was an easy thing to lose, and he dared not hope for the future he and Aziraphale might after all have.

Hell wasn't the place where they would let you get away with anything. As to Heaven, Crowley didn't know anymore and didn't wish to know, after they'd let Aziraphale Fall. Besides, as far as demons, or people for that matter, were concerned, Heaven had never been particularly merciful. No, waiting for kindness or forgiveness or compassion from either of those organisations was a hopeless thing to begin with, and still, in spite of it all, Crowley was finding himself too hopeful for his own good.

*****

Meanwhile, they were in Peru, driving through the country at an unhurried pace, enjoying the breath-taking scenery despite the not particularly favourable weather. The sunsets over the Andes were absolutely awe-inspiring almost every evening, though, the air was crystal clear and full of exotic aromas. They both had seen it all before, of course, but it had been a while since the moment he and Aziraphale had ventured far out of London, and beholding the familiar yet somewhat forgotten places was refreshing.

Currently, they were resting on the top of the Rainbow Mountain, from which, as the tourist brochure claimed, a magnificent view of the nature's wonder was revealed. Luckily for them, despite the rainy season, it duly was, so a bunch of tourists, all wielding cameras and dressed in heavy trekking boots, with the only thing distinguishing them from each other being the various shades of acid colours of their jackets, were bustling around taking tons of pictures and barely paying attention to the actual magnificent view. The place generally had some weird vibe Crowley couldn't put his finger upon – nothing really out of ordinary, but at the same time being elusively _reassuring_. It was a strange choice of word to describe a truly beautiful yet still only a hill in the middle of nowhere, but it was the closest Crowley got to characterising it at all. Aziraphale was asked for assistance by a few of their fellow hikers, and he complied, with his amiable, polite bookshop keeper's smile, taking a variety of shots and striking up small talks now and then. Crowley was not asked for assistance, but then again, he rarely was, on general principle. To his genuine surprise, he was, however, offered to be taken a photo of.

_"…if you posed over there with that sweet boyfriend of yours, wouldn't that be just a marvellous background, love?" _chirped a lady in her fifties, also dressed in a bright pink jacket and trekking boots. She looked screamingly British and had a pronounced Oxford accent.

Crowley stared at her through the almost completely opaque lenses of his sun-glasses for a couple of moments, pointedly, contemplating asking her why on earth she decided that they were in that sort of relationship, while the lady continued to smile at him ever so pleasantly until, in the end, he had no other option but to acquiesce. He didn't miss the chance to let out a huff and roll his eyes behind the dark lenses, but the lady didn't seem to be discouraged by that in the slightest.

"Angel," he called in the general direction of his _'boyfriend'_.

Hearing it being put that way by a stranger was somewhat astonishing, but pleasantly so. The lady's eyes darted towards Aziraphale, and a smile that was threatening to turn into a grin stretched the corners of her mouth even more. She got a hold of herself, however. Crowley marvelled at how the angel was still able to charm people by doing nothing but being excessively fussy, even though he knew that it was mainly feigned now, just his regular _talking to strangers_ behaviour. He held out his phone to the woman.

"Come here," he beckoned Aziraphale as the latter turned to give him a questioning glance. "Family picture time."

Aziraphale did, looking a bit taken aback, but smiling dazzlingly with his lightly crooked smile all the same. Maybe it was just the lighting here but all of a sudden, his face seemed so open and untroubled as if there hadn't been all those dragging months of constant worries behind. His smile was easy-going and open, the sun behind him turned his hair into a halo of light, and his eyes looked _almost_ blue. He, too, was dressed in black trousers and a bright blue jacket, the shade of it reminding the demon of that cerulean colour he was missing so much.

But then Aziraphale was beside him, with that astonishingly carefree smile on his lips, and then the woman was cooing the trivial _'Cheese,'_ and the angel positively _beamed_ at her, his palm resting lightly against Crowley's upper arm, and Crowley himself, too mesmerised by Aziraphale's sheer beauty, did not have enough time to turn his head to look at the camera. In the end, they got a photo so explicit in its genuineness and sincerity they couldn't have taken a better one if they'd purposefully posed for it one hundred times.

"Oh, that came out just _lovely_!" the lady exclaimed, obviously satisfied.

"Thank you ever so much, dear heart," Aziraphale told the woman, taking Crowley's phone from her and handing it back to Crowley, who for some reason was still unable to deal with that initial fit of raw emotion that had struck him moments before.

He wasn't giving a toss about the photograph – all he could think of, presently, was how unusually cheerful Aziraphale looked – and behaved – as if all the previous months hadn't happened to them at all and he was still his old own self, an angel, a bastard at times but still inevitably divine and glowing with it. Out of the blue, Crowley was seized by a compulsive desire to just come up to him, gather him in his arms and bury his nose into that cloud of unruly curls, breathing in his scent, his very essence, and bask in the hope it used to be able to give him.

"You're British, aren't you?" the woman asked meanwhile, conversationally.

"Absolutely," Aziraphale nodded, looking pleased. "London."

"Oh, I just thought so!"

"And you?"

"Oh, from somewhere around Oxfordshire," the woman said rather evasively, making a vague gesture with her hand. "How do you find it here? Magnificent scenery, isn't it?"

"Oh, we're just awed by it--"

It looked like Aziraphale had suddenly found a good company and Crowley let himself zone out for a while, doing nothing but simply beholding his partner. He was enchanted by the way the wind teased his curls, and by the wrinkles that appeared around his eyes as he squinted at the sun, and the way his lips formed the shapes of the words as he articulated them in immaculate British accent. He simply stood beside Aziraphale and this lady as they engaged in a small talk, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, unable to help admiring the angel. Unable to help loving him and worrying about him and wanting him, a mixture of emotions which contained way too much affection and tenderness to be experienced by a demon. It still threatened to choke him at times, good as he'd become at dealing with them.

"--might sound strange, considering the beauty of this place," the woman was saying, "but I'm really missing London, somehow. I'd never have thought I would, not with this absolutely marvellous landscape around! But you know, perhaps this local drizzle is what's making me homesick."

Aziraphale laughed at that good-naturedly and agreed that, yes, indeed, the London weather tended to get under your skin and remain there for long, not missing an opportunity to lament about heatwaves which were becoming increasingly common even in England.

As they said their respective good-byes, the woman's sparkling eyes smiled at Crowley as openly as they did at Aziraphale, but for some unfathomable reason he had an impression that there was worry in her gaze, directed, weirdly, at him. What she said next was even more confusing.

"It was such a pleasure finally meeting you," she told Crowley, shaking his hand, holding it just a tad too long for his liking in both of hers. Her palms were dry and warm and, strangely, the touch sent a wave of tingles all over his body. Crowley felt himself shiver ever so lightly, unable to take his hand away until she let it go herself. "And you too," she turned to Aziraphale, shaking his hand in the same manner but letting it remain in hers even longer. "You take care of him, will you?"

And just like that, all of a sudden, the angel's carefree attitude was gone, his eyes losing their focus as if he'd just been hypnotised or something of that sort. Crowley stared at him, heart pounding in his chest, thoughts racing in his head, _blessit_, this is it, this woman is an agent working for either Above or Below or both of them and she's trying to--

But then, before he could actually do anything, the awareness was back in the angel's eyes and he stared at the petite lady with a weird sort of awe, his jaw dropping just a little to complement the entire image. Crowley was about to open his mouth to demand to be told just what on earth was going on, but before he could do that, the woman let go of Aziraphale's hand and with a smile that looked as if she wasn't looking at two strangers she'd just met on some nondescript hill in Peru but at two old-time acquaintances of hers, she turned away and strolled towards the path that weaved serpentine-like downwards.

They exchanged a glance, the angel still looking a bit dazed, and the demon raised a quizzical eyebrow at him, his heartbeat still echoing in his ears as the residue of the surge of adrenalin he'd just experienced disintegrated in his bloodstream.

"Just what the H—_sssomething_ – was that ssupposed to mean, huh?" Crowley asked, too alarmed to banish the hiss out of his voice.

Aziraphale only gave him a slightly baffled look, and then shrugged, his eyes trailing back after the woman who'd already disappeared out of sight.

"I… don't know, my dear," he said, finally, voice hushed as if he was inside a church instead of standing on the top of a windblown hill.

"Are you all right, angel?" Crowley asked, no less perplexed than Aziraphale himself, flexing the hand the woman had shaken, unconsciously.

It felt weird but he couldn't put his finger upon what exactly was weird about it. It didn't hurt, and it wasn't exactly unpleasant or anything of that sort. It was simply that, weirdly tingly.

"Yes," Aziraphale said, his voice so quiet Crowley had to strain his hearing to pick that up. "Yes, I think, I am." Then he reached out, placing his hands onto Crowley's shoulders, and kissed his cheek, softly. "I… you do know, right?" he whispered softly against the corner of Crowley's mouth, and then let go, letting his palms slide down the demon's arms until they reached his hands.

Crowley nodded, knowing perfectly well what Aziraphale wanted to say but had not. He squeezed the angel's hands briefly, giving him a proper once-over. There was a troubled crease nestled between his eyebrows, but it really didn't appear as if he thought that something was wrong. Aziraphale looked as if he was simply preoccupied with remembering something which was on the very tip of his tongue but then kept relentlessly slipping away.

Irrationally, though, Crowley wished Aziraphale had said it out loud, said that he loved him. It was most certainly selfish because he knew it anyway and no one needed unnecessary bloodshed, here of all places, but he felt as if hearing it now would be a guarantee enough that Aziraphale was really all right, after all, like a soothing salve on a fresh wound. Because, Crowley realised with a start, there was a wound – Aziraphale drifting away from him in some subtle, undetermined manner, which was hurting him in a way he couldn't explain. It was as if his soul was splitting into way too many pieces, more than his sanity could probably endure. First, long ago, a part of it was obliterated by the Fall – or at least it's what he'd always thought – and now the angel, who had been the only being capable of filling that yawning void was also falling away, distancing himself, taking with him more than he'd initially given Crowley, taking some inevitable part _of_ Crowley himself, as well.

*****

That night, right out of the blue and taking Crowley by surprise, Aziraphale tentatively suggested that they should perhaps head back home.

They were drinking sweet local wine on the open terrace outside their hotel room, and, to Crowley's anxiety, it seemed as if all evening through Aziraphale had been looking at him in that same _weird_ way the British woman they'd met back on that hill had, the angel's intense, studying gaze peering at Crowley with most distressing intensity. He made a half-arsed attempt at contemplating what it could possibly mean, what on earth had happened back there between that lady and Aziraphale, and what that weird tingling all over his body had been caused by, but he was a bit too tipsy to start analysing it right now. What he found himself more preoccupied with was the way Aziraphale had put it. _Home_, that was. _Home_, come to think of it, was all Crowley had wished for ever since the moment they had fled from it months ago.

Home meant St. James's and the ducks. It was defined by late dinners at the Ritz, with too much wine and way too many desserts, most of which he would feed to Aziraphale anyway. Home was the old creaky sofa in the bookshop, so shabby and tattered it was a disgrace for all the sofa kind, but so cosy and familiar and comfortable all the same. Home implied the Bentley with its insolent manner of refusing to play anything but the best of Queen. Home was filled with the smell of seaweed after rain and freshly brewed coffee from that tiny coffeeshop near his flat in Mayfair, where they also served those rather plain biscuits Aziraphale was ineffably fond of. Home consisted of rows and stalls of books and dust motes and the annoying jingle of the bell above the door. Home involved his various plants, and that particular thought echoed in Crowley's chest with a sharp painful pang. Fighters that they were, they couldn't have survived these past months all on their own.

Barely aware of what he was doing and having totally forgotten about Aziraphale's offer, Crowley swallowed and sank his teeth into his lower lip as an unpleasant lump formed in his throat. The thought about his plants turned out to be way more disturbing than it had any right to be.

"Crowley?" the angel's voice pulled him back to the real world and the demon raised his eyes to meet the angel's concerned look. "Are you--"

"Fine," Crowley shook his head. "Jussst a bit drunk, is all."

Aziraphale gave him another one of his weird glances and then nodded. "So what do you think about it?"

"Going back?"

"Yeah."

"Think it's gonna be safe back there?" Crowley asked, chewing on his lower lip and leisurely rotating the wine bottle, leaning it this way and that until it finally slid out of his grip and tipped too much and Crowley hissed a curse as the dark red liquid suddenly spilt onto the white tablecloth. Before he could do anything about the growing blotch, Aziraphale's hand was on his, ever so warm and steady, giving his freezing fingers a gentle squeeze. Suddenly, he could literally _taste_ Aziraphale's anxiety but he couldn't quite tell what it was caused by. The wine stain disappeared off the tablecloth all by itself in front of his very eyes. He looked at the angel, but Aziraphale wasn't paying any attention to what he'd just miracled away. He was looking at Crowley, intensely, a crease settling in between his eyebrows once more, and this one was certainly speaking volumes of worry.

"My dear…"

"'m fine," Crowley repeated. "Fine. Jussst blasted--" he trailed off and shrugged dismissively instead.

He didn't want to say that he was just blasted tired. Exhausted more like it. Pulling himself together by the skin of his teeth and more convinced with every passing day that he must be failing miserably.

"So you'd say it's safe enough to go back now?" he asked – slurred, really, because, man, he was drunk.

Aziraphale smiled, a little tired crooked smile, and then shrugged. "I guess so… if they'd really wanted to find us, they should have done so long ago, don't you think? It's not like we've really been doing much hiding these past couple of months anyway."

Crowley wanted to object. The paranoid side of his personality wanted to argue that both Hell and Heaven could wait forever for their chance, but Aziraphale did have a point of course, saying that it still shouldn't have been too complicated for either side to figure out where the two of them were. Besides, he was feeling unbelievably knackered and just a bit too drunk to contradict.

So he didn't object. With a sigh, he nodded his head. "I guess so," he said.

"Crowley?"

"I'm jussst drunk, angel," he huffed. "Need to sober up, probably."

"You need to sleep," Aziraphale shook his head and suddenly his hand was gone. Crowley twitched and was forced to lock his eyes with the angel's at the loss of the familiar, solid warmth.

"I don't need--" he protested, with some surprise noticing that he was not just _a bit_ drunk, he was sloshed enough to make his tongue all sluggish and unwilling to cooperate.

"Of course," came a prompt reply and in a heartbeat, Aziraphale was beside him, arms hooking under his arm pits. "Come, let's just get you to bed, my dear."

"I'm not gonna sleep, angel," Crowley slurred stubbornly but allowed Aziraphale to help him off the chair. "I'll stay on guard, just in cassse--"

"Of course, of course, now let's go. You could stay on guard in bed, right?" Aziraphale's worried murmur landed in a warm puff of breath somewhere against the side of Crowley's throat.

"Sure, angel, as y'ssay."

He let Aziraphale lead the way, the floor treacherously tilting this way and that beneath his feet, and once they'd successfully reached the bed, he let the angel undress him and tuck him in. After a while, Aziraphale slid under the blanket beside him and switched the lights off with a wave of his hand, making the demon want to point out that it had been way too many frivolous miracles for one evening but the alcohol in his system combined with the fatigue that had settled what seemed like in the very centre of his being such a long time ago rendered him rather useless in articulation department. Resolute to keep true to his word and stay awake, he thought that he'd just close his eyes for a few minutes, enjoying this solid, warm, caring presence beside himself, pretending everything was the way it was supposed to be, the way it had been, and then he'd sober up and do his duty. Just one more minute, well, maybe two. Leaving the warm safety of the angel's arms felt way too sacrilegious, so he'd just allow himself a few more minutes of peace.

*****

Predictably enough, Crowley ended up fast asleep, properly asleep for the first time in months, curled against Aziraphale, his nose nuzzled into the former angel's regularly rising and falling chest, with Aziraphale's arms wrapped tightly around him, holding him, securing him in the embrace he'd craved for right from the beginning of times, securing him in something warm and safe and _loving_.

It was the first night since Aziraphale's Fall which Crowley had slept through, soundly, and which Aziraphale himself had spent completely wide awake, thanks to a little trickle of magic he poured into his corporation to remain alert and clear-headed. He had a lot of thinking to do, and the only thing which genuinely surprised him was why it had taken him six months to start doing it.

Nothing out of ordinary happened during the night, and, the following afternoon found Crowley nursing a hell of a hangover. He'd spent the entire night and whole morning not changing his position even once, on his side, arms around Aziraphale's middle and his face in the crook of his neck. As he stirred to consciousness, Aziraphale allowed his own embrace loosen slightly to give him more room, and Crowley rolled just a little away from him with a miserable groan, his forearm coming to rest across his eyes apparently to block the daylight.

"Shit," he mumbled. "Should've never gone to sleep drunk." And then, as he'd apparently realised that this was precisely what had happened, "Have I been out the entire night?"

"The night _and_ half of the day, my dear," Aziraphale smiled at him, gently prying Crowley's arm away from his face to be able to cup his cheek with his hand instead.

"What--" the demon began but trailed off suddenly as Aziraphale miracled his hangover away, his eyes focusing uneasily on Aziraphale's face. "That… that was hardly unpleasant," he muttered, a frown on his face.

"Well, of course it wasn't, that was demonic power, not divine, shouldn't hurt you the way mine used to," Aziraphale said softly, surprised that he wasn't feeling that much sadness talking about it. "How're you feeling?"

Crowley gave him a long glance, as if trying to tell how Aziraphale himself was feeling but then smirked just a little. "Fine, I guess," he murmured, tilting his head just so that Aziraphale's fingertips could trail from his cheek to the side of his neck, exposing his skin to the caress. "Oh, that feels good."

Aziraphale smiled, not sure when was the last time he'd felt this oddly at peace with everything, and placed an indulgent peck on Crowley's slightly parted lips. The demon returned one with a smile, and just feeling it against his own lips made Aziraphale's heart become so much fuller.

"Did you really suggest going home last night?" Crowley asked as they parted, eyelids slipping languidly open, amber eyes locking with Aziraphale's. "Didn't dream it all up, did I?"

"I did," he confirmed, moving back to be able to look at the demon's reaction without having to cross his eyes. "It seems like we've been on the run for too long and it doesn't look like there's much sense left in it half a year later."

"You really think it's safe back there?"

Aziraphale shrugged. "Well, no more dangerous than anywhere in the world, if you ask me. Besides, I really miss London and…" he trailed off.

"And…?" Crowley prompted him.

"That lady from Oxford, she said something about London weather, and it just… I don't know, hit home," Aziraphale smiled uncertainly, still somewhat baffled by that funny encounter.

"She was an odd one, wasn't she?" Crowley asked, and Aziraphale could literally feel anxiety emanating off him in waves. He wondered if it had been like this for the past six months and he'd just been too blind to see it for what it was, absorbed into his own apathy.

Aziraphale leaned in, taking Crowley back into his arms, palms coming to rest on his shoulder blades, rubbing the spots where his wings would be if they were manifested. The demon's body reacted immediately as he leaned into the caress, face burying itself in Aziraphale's chest.

"I think we're just looking for odd where there isn't any," he sighed against the top of Crowley's head. "Jumping at shadows."

"Mhmm," Crowley hummed, now his legs twining with Aziraphale's as he pressed himself into his body.

His breath, muffled against Aziraphale's chest, got slightly more irregular as Aziraphale's hands kept on their methodical exploration of his body as he did the best he could to rub the tension off it. In a while, both his and Crowley's clothes were sent into the firmament, leaving the demon's slender frame stark naked against his own. He gasped at the sudden sensation, even though it was by no means unfamiliar, and went on stroking Crowley everywhere where his hands could reach in their current position. He let his fingers brush through Crowley's tousled hair, massaging his scalp, run over his neck and knead the surprisingly stiff muscles of his shoulders, and then rub all the way down his spine, hand splayed against the warm smooth skin, trailing over all those protruding vertebrae and down to his behind, squeezing his buttocks unceremoniously enough to make the demon let out a muffled whine. Encouraged by this, Aziraphale took hold of Crowley's thigh, urging him to hook his leg over his hip, which Crowley did without hesitation, all the while moving against Aziraphale's body with fluid grace, writhing and squirming in an attempt to find more points of contact between them. Aziraphale squeezed his thigh and let his hand slide down to his knee, the skin at the back of it damp with sweat and tendons straining right against Aziraphale's palm, Crowley's heel digging against the back of his own thigh.

"Don't stop," Crowley gasped into his neck, sounding awfully vulnerable, mouth open and wet against his skin, his body supple and flexible in Aziraphale's arms, so much resembling that of his true nature, a huge serpent from the garden of Eden Aziraphale had met many a millennia ago, heavy and strong and wiry in his embrace. "Please, angel…"

"I've got you, my dear," Aziraphale said, voice hushed and somewhat out of breath, as he exposed more of his neck for Crowley to slobber, happy to oblige to his plea.

He held Crowley through it all, giving him as much tactile contact as he could, stroking, rubbing, massaging, gripping and squeezing him, hands never straying anywhere near Crowley's nether regions because there really was no need for it. The demon was writhing against him, seemingly totally self-absorbed, rubbing himself efficiently enough against whichever body part of Aziraphale happened to be in the proximity, the tip of his flesh moist on Aziraphale's skin, as he let out hushed, breathless sounds, half-moans, half-sobs, so wonderfully desperate, so genuinely unguarded. He held him until the end when, with a hitch in his breath, Crowley tensed against him and then cried ever so softly against Aziraphale's shoulder as his release came, Aziraphale wrapping his arms around his sweat-covered, slick, hot body as tightly as he could, wondering distractedly why he'd never done _this_ before. Clearly, it was dictated by Crowley's very nature, and, somehow, Aziraphale had completely neglected the demon's craving for this sort of tactile intimacy. Crowley's reaction to what he was doing spoke louder than words – he all but melted into Aziraphale's hold, breaths ragged and mixing with little desperate noises.

"Oh Crowley…" he murmured against the demon's temple, damp to the touch and with his hair stuck to the skin. "I should have seen…"

"Huh?" Crowley hummed.

The former angel only shook his head, tightening the hold of his arms around Crowley.

"I'm holding you," he said instead of explaining anything. "Sleep a little more, my dear, I'll be right here."

As Aziraphale watched the demon doze off, thankfully, without putting up any fight, thoughts kept swirling in his head, whirlpools and tornadoes of thoughts, snippets, questions, feelings that had always been there yet which had somehow been subdued over the past half a year. He wondered what it had been that had made him retreat so far away within himself, so far away from what he had been willing to sacrifice everything to save in the first place, and what it had been that had suddenly made him see, as if some veil had fallen off his eyes, enabling him to finally notice and comprehend what was going on. Crowley's arms were wound so tightly around his waist Aziraphale felt them every time he breathed, solidly holding on to him for dear life. All those nights spent together ever since he had Fallen, nights Aziraphale had been dreaming about for centuries, had been craving desperately, all those nights which should have been wonderful all merged into one long never-ending night he had been too preoccupied with wallowing in his own sorrow to even take a proper notice of, let alone appreciate. All those nights spent in his demon's arms, drawing solace and compassion and love and giving nothing in return. Aziraphale wondered why it had happened that way, was it his Fall that had virtually rendered him indifferent to any kind of emotion but his own grief, insensitive to what was going on around him, not only severing the bond with Him but all but isolating him in his sorrow, leaving him unable to perceive anything except what was going on inside his own soul?

Another glance at Crowley, the pale cheeks and bluish circles under his eyes, looking exhausted even in his sleep, and Aziraphale started to wonder what he had deprived Crowley of on those nights he'd slept through and which the demon had spent awake. He couldn't even quite tell just how exactly he knew that he'd stayed awake, but, somehow, he did, just like he'd felt that elusive threat back in London, back before all hell broke loose.

These arms clasped around him as if Aziraphale was his safety jacket, flotation ring the demon was too terrified to let go of. His nose pushed trustingly against Aziraphale's chest, breathing soft and even, warm on his skin, just like on that night in the midst of plague-afflicted London when Crowley had sought deliverance so desperately, ending up in his bookshop. On that night something had really clicked in Aziraphale's mind, as his breath had caught in his throat momentarily. The overwhelming in its intensity wave of warmest affection engulfing him from head to toe, as he had let the demon hold on to himself, as he had let him be soothed, as he had let himself channel all that affection he had had in himself for such a long time he hadn't even been noticing it really, and which he had suddenly become aware of, Crowley's scent and his breath and his silken hair ticking his nose, and his slender body with long limbs, and that hold of his around Aziraphale, so fierce in its intensity.

Wasn't it like that right now, with him once again having completely neglected something? It wasn't the plague and the fever doing their thing to Crowley, slowly burning him out from the inside, but Aziraphale's own indifference and withdrawal, and wasn't it even worse? He wasn't yet sure as to how that had happened, but he remembered the precise moment he had seen the way his demon really looked lately, on the top of that windblown hill with colours spread all around them in an inexplicable rainbow the nature had created, something still tingling through him, making the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand in end, as if he'd just been electrocuted, but in an entirely different way, as if life was breathed back rather than burnt out of him.

*****

The next day, giving up on their rule of trying not to tweak with reality too much, they miraculously found plane tickets to Lima and then took a flight to Amsterdam, and then a connecting one to London. Crowley looked slightly more rested but remained silent, apparently being way too preoccupied with what they'd have to face once they were back in London. He was also unaware of how his fingers kept nervously trifling with either his sunglasses, or the lapel of his jacket, or the styrofoam cup, crumpling it over and over again until Aziraphale's hand found his and gently took it away, returning in a moment to give Crowley's fingers a reassuring squeeze. Crowley started, huffed, sounding a bit flustered, but returned the gesture and held Aziraphale's hand tightly throughout the rest of the flight.

That strange feeling from the day before was still lingering all over Aziraphale, like a residue of being drunk and miracling it away – your body was totally devoid of all alcohol and functioning normally enough, but just for a few subsequent minutes it was as if it was still trying to adjust to the new state of affairs. This was how he was feeling, and his mind relentlessly returned to that incident of the previous day, to that woman who had given him that unnerving, tingling sensation and told him… what did she tell him, exactly, upon saying their respective goodbyes, apart from that it had been nice meeting them?

Aziraphale himself felt weirdly calm about returning to London, but, judging by Crowley's state, coming home felt increasingly less exciting and a hell of a lot more terrifying the closer they got to it. They were heading for Mayfair, of course, and silently, the former angel wondered what had become of the demon's flat. Was it even there at all or had either of their bosses – or former bosses, who could have known the state of current affairs with regard to them – taken care of it? Was it destroyed, altogether with the entire apartment building? Had it been broken into? Was anyone stationed there waiting for them?

A thermos filled with Holy water rested on the seat between their thighs, and Aziraphale could hear the water splash inside of it as the taxi swerved from lane to lane heading through the night towards Mayfair. Towards _home, _or whatever was left of it.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *'Waiting for You' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds


	9. Chapter 9

_The sun will shine_   
_ The bottom line_   
_ I follow you.*©_

*************

Aziraphale wasn't sure if he was surprised to see Crowley's flat still in its legitimate place, or, after all, not all that much. Still, despite whatever expectations he'd had, there it was, its painfully familiar windows dark and, even if not looking particularly welcoming, not exactly menacing either.

Even so, Crowley insisted with a slightly manic grin Aziraphale didn't very much like that they should be prepared for whatever might be waiting for them inside, and then carefully unscrewed the cap from the thermos with Holy water. The dagger was in Aziraphale's possession, and he obediently extracted it from his own suitcase, though with much less enthusiasm. Now that they were back, he reasoned, there was no sense in hiding anymore – here in Crowley's flat they were practically over on a plate in case either Heaven or Hell decided to pay them a visit. He didn't care much for the dagger and instead let his senses reach out, probing the surroundings for any sort of supernatural presence. There didn't seem to be any, but he knew that arguing with Crowley would be absolutely futile. This dagger wasn't exactly a flaming sword he'd wielded millennia ago with ease, but this was a dangerous weapon all the same, so he obediently squeezed its handle, prepared to face anything or anyone who might be waiting for them inside but not really believing he'd have to. What he was much more preoccupied with, frankly, was Crowley's ever-increasing paranoia-induced anxiety. It had been reasonable and more than understandable in the beginning when they'd set out on their half-a-year long flight, but even despite their precautions he was sure that if anyone had really wanted to get them, they would have done so, Holy water or no Holy water. Since there had been nothing at all, Aziraphale assumed, there probably was not much sense in worrying now.

That was him, though, and Crowley obviously didn't share his point of view on these things, and perhaps he couldn't be blamed for it having spent six thousand years working for Hell. Aziraphale didn't quite like how dilated his pupils were now as the demon looked around his flat even though all lights in every single room were switched on, making the illumination bright enough to make him squint. Crowley didn't quite search it – he knew as well as Aziraphale did that they'd feel the aura of any intruder should there be one, and there didn't seem to be anyone but the two of them – but he still let his eyes linger for way too long on one thing or another as he sauntered through the flat, movements all twitchy, while Aziraphale himself just stood in the doorway between the hall to the living room beside their luggage, watching the demon with growing concern but not quite daring to tell him to stop.

He looked around, too, taking in the familiar interior and finding himself experiencing a bittersweet mixture of emotions, simultaneously reminded of the circumstances under which they'd had to flee from here all those long months ago and yet painfully glad to be back all the same. Only having returned here, having entered this very flat, did he seem to realise just how badly he'd been missing _home_. Aziraphale didn't quite have the heart to contemplate what it'd feel like to step into his bookshop after all this time and after all that had happened. He wasn't sure he was prepared for that, not yet.

By all means, Crowley's flat should be dusty, he reckoned, after several months of being unlived in, but Crowley must have simply assumed its sterile cleanliness to be an imperative, so clean and acutely dustless it remained. The state of Crowley's formerly lush collection of plants wasn't so enviable, however. Most of them had withered to dry, faded skeletons; some still seemed to be struggling to stay alive but obviously losing the battle. Aziraphale watched with sadness as the demon came to his improvised greenhouse by the window, a niche created by the uneven design of the walls, and stood in front of it, apparently trying to assess the damage. Just as he was about to come over, too, and offer his genuine condolences for the state of affairs Crowley's little garden was in, the demon reached out, touching one of the dry leaves ever so gently with the very tips of his fingers – those must have been violettes once, he reflected – and in a heartbeat the leaf didn't look quite so brown anymore. In another heartbeat, it turned greenish, and then the entire plant seemed to reluctantly _cough_ back to life. Aziraphale had no idea where the metaphor had come from, but it looked exactly like that, like someone coming to after having been nearly drowned.

Crowley took his hand away once the plant looked relatively well, even if still slightly wilted.

"You'll do well now, I guess," the demon murmured and reached out to touch another one, a calathea this time, and then another, and another, until every single one of them was more or less revived.

Aziraphale watched this from his place in the middle of the room, mesmerised, glued to the spot he was in. He also thought he'd heard a rather unintelligible but nevertheless loud enough _'sorry'_ mumbled every now and then. Aziraphale shifted his gaze to the begonia the demon was presently talking to, then back to the demon himself, the absence of his sunglasses making him look more vulnerable than Aziraphale wanted to admit, what with his hunched shoulders and with the hand that was gently caressing one of the plant's leaves trembling visibly.

And then a feeling of _déjà vu_, so strong it was almost nauseous, swept over Aziraphale, making him distinctly remember another occasion his demon had looked _this_ profoundly distraught. As he stood where he was, suddenly being able to look at Crowley with what felt like a set of new eyes, taking in his whole image, he asked himself for just how long this had been happening and why he had failed to see it earlier.

*****

It was that first night of the rest of their lives and the subsequent morning twenty-two years ago that Aziraphale suddenly recalled. For them both, an angel Aziraphale, a former Principality and the Guardian of the Eastern Gate, demoted to the position of a field agent on Earth, and a demon Crowley, the Original Tempter but now merely a pawn in the great game between Heaven and Hell sent on Earth as a field agent to interfere with his adversary's business, the events of the day caused emotional overload of truly terrifying proportions. Aziraphale's feelings back on that night seemed to range from sheer bliss to utter terror, from total confusion to profound, mind-numbing knowledge, from the bitter sense of loss to the pure joy of finding something of tremendous importance. He wasn't sure he was capable of dealing with the enormity of it all, so what he did instead, to distract himself from overanalysing and overthinking and overreacting, was focus all his attention on the only being who must know precisely how Aziraphale himself felt.

Late in the evening, from the Tadfield airbase, they drove to Crowley's flat, of course – back at the time both of them were convinced that the Soho bookshop was no more, so there was virtually no alternative as Aziraphale had nowhere else to go. He did his best to keep his mind from straying to his bookshop over and over again – one step at a time, he told himself, let's deal with more pressing matters first and then handle all the rest.

Presently, the more pressing matter required putting one particularly edgy, sooty and so very dear demon to bed. They hadn't talked much on their way back to London, both of them far too stunned by the recent events to be able to form any coherent sentences aloud. They had earned themselves a happy ending, against all odds, the Earth and all its inhabitants were still there, they both were in one piece and seemingly out of harm's way, even if only for the time being, and the reality appeared to be adjusting itself back to normal, no collateral damage done and lots of previously existing damage actually remedied. That was something to be happy about, Aziraphale reckoned, but then again, mere trying to comprehend all of it all at once was a task requiring way too much effort, and from the look of things neither of them could muster any strength to do so. 

Crowley looked pretty much how Aziraphale himself was feeling – unnerved, unhinged and tittering on the brink of a mental breakdown, if such thing was even possible for beings of their persuasion. Nonetheless, the angel felt more concerned about Crowley than about himself, which, come to think of it, didn't come anywhere near as a surprise. Over the six millennia of their acquaintance, he'd come to know the demon well enough to understand that _worrying_ about him wasn't all that groundless. Crowley was vulnerable in ways the angel hadn't quite understood before and only now, sitting on the edge of his insolently big bed and watching the demon falling into the embrace of – hopefully, and he was going to do his best to ensure it was so – dreamless sleep, he was starting to grasp the reason behind it, the reason, which, Aziraphale was sure, he had taken unforgivably too long to understand.

He'd done Crowley injustice, he knew. He-- _bugger_, he'd been doing him injustice for… well, almost as long as he had known the demon, and now that Aziraphale finally seemed to comprehend his own mistake, it was turning into a heavy weight burdening his soul.

_I can't put it any better than that. Especially not to you_, he'd said as he'd tried to explain to Crowley what exactly felt odd about Lower Tadfield. He, an angel, said that; an angel who was by nature able to perceive love; one who'd spent thousands of years side by side with Crowley; one who thought that by now he had come to know the demon inside out.

Back in Crowley's dark bedroom, Aziraphale winced as if the thought was hurting him almost physically. What he had said was lame. That was, come to think of it, every bit a rude, short-sighted and utterly unacceptable thing to say, of all people, to Crowley.

For some reason – perhaps simply because of his being his occasional arrogant self – he'd thought that Crowley didn't feel – _couldn't_ feel – love, but, oh, of course he could, and Aziraphale should have known better than that. The demon _loved_ his plants, and he _loved_ good wine and fancy suits, and he _loved_ his Bentley, and he _loved_ this planet, and he _loved_ so many other things. All of those were just material objects, but it didn't mean that Crowley's _love_ for them could be marginalised because of it. It seemed so perfectly obvious to Aziraphale now that he finally took a moment to give it some reasonable thought. He wasn't sure what place in this list of what Crowley loved was reserved for him, personally, but he certainly should have done better realising that the concept of love was far from being totally alien to him, demon or no demon.

And now, watching his long-time counterpart, his long-time _friend_, sleep, Aziraphale suddenly felt overwhelmed by a variety of emotions. He didn't even know where to begin to classify them. It all started with the feeling of profound shame for having neglected that fact, for having dared to tell Crowley that he wouldn't understand love, and then it galloped and spiralled very much out of control and into…

_Oh dear_.

The moonlight infiltrated into the bedroom through the half-lowered blinds, bathing Crowley's face in its cold, serene glow, and if Aziraphale had to begin with something, well, he'd say that Crowley looked inexplicably, breathtakingly beautiful. Crowley was a demon, and vanity was in his job description, all right, but it didn't lessen the extent of how good-looking he was. With his good cheekbones, long eyelashes, pointy nose and sensual mouth, with his silken, jet-black, hair carelessly falling onto his brow, with his amber eyes, so deep and rich in colour, with his slender build and elegant hands and suave manners, well, Crowley was nothing short of a masterpiece. It was no accident he had become a muse and inspiration for many an artist in various times and places of the world.

And now, today, tonight, after all that horrible Apocalypse business behind them, with soot still smudged here and there over his face, with that ghostly moonlight pouring over his skin the way it did, Crowley looked more beautiful than ever in his tranquil vulnerability. Aziraphale hadn't understood it at first, and then had come to appreciate it, this trust the demon had in him allowing himself to fall asleep, literally defenceless, in the presence of his adversary.

Something tugged at the region of Aziraphale's sternum, and it was simultaneously painful and pleasant. He suspected he knew the name of the feeling. He suspected he should have recognized it oh such a long time ago, and now that this sorry business with destroying the world had been dealt with, Aziraphale really hoped he'd get the chance to make up for it. After all, this was only the very first night of the rest of their lives.

Beside him, the demon stirred uneasily in his sleep, his breathing straying from its regular pattern as he muttered something nigh on unintelligible. Aziraphale reached out to place his hand onto Crowley's cheek or his brow – just like he'd done on innumerable occasions before – when the demon sighed something which made Aziraphale's hand stop dead in its track.

_"Angel"_, he murmured, apparently still fast asleep. There was a crease between his eyebrows, and suddenly his face looked more strained and haggard than it had been while he'd been trying to force the smoking, blazing remains of his beloved Bentley to work by sheer force of will. "_Angel… 'ziraphale_," he repeated in that drowsy, distracted manner.

"Oh, my dear," Aziraphale muttered and let his hand move on until it was resting lightly against the lukewarm skin of Crowley's cheek. "Sleep," he whispered, caressing it ever so gently and trying to apply as tender an amount of his angelic power as he could so as not to accidentally give him a shock instead of scaring away whatever nightmares were trying to haunt his dreams. "Rest, my dear, I'm right beside you."

The demon stilled almost immediately, his body relaxing under Aziraphale's divine touch, the crease fading away from his forehead and his breathing reacquiring its reassuring regularity.

"It's all right," Aziraphale murmured, letting the tips of his fingers linger a little longer against Crowley's cheek. "It's all going to be all right from now on."

Another thing which should have been obvious but still hit Aziraphale with the force of a freight train was the realization that he'd come dreadfully close to losing Crowley. It was sheer luck – unless it was all ineffable, of course, and who the… _someone_, could know it – that everything had ended up the way it had, with Heaven, Hell and Earth still in their legitimate places, with the two of them miraculously out of harm's way, safe and sound. Aziraphale tried to imagine what it would feel like if, hypothetically, his side had won and… he wasn't able to continue as mere thinking of what might have been brought a shudder. In terms of wars, Heaven was merciless. They wouldn't have spared anyone, Aziraphale was certain of that much.

The angel looked at the sleeping, defenceless form of his demon, snuggled into his fluffy blanket, with his face so fragilely beautiful and decidedly _un_demonic. They wouldn't have spared even him_, definitely _not him_, _he thought, suddenly aghast.

Aziraphale swallowed, shying from the thought. There was no point in going down that road. They were here and they were all right and they were together. He wasn't planning on letting the demon go anywhere, not from now on. He was planning to start making amends, in fact, long overdue but better late than never as the saying went.

When morning finally came, peaceful and bright and utterly ineffable, it found Aziraphale lounging on the floor beside Crowley's bed, his back against the wall, still watching his demon, drinking in his features, not able to get enough of him in the face of the tragedy they'd managed to escape by the skin of their teeth, and with the darkness of the night gone, the last of his worries were dissipating, too.

At about a quarter past eleven or so, Crowley's eyelids twitched. He drew a breath, deeper than the previous one, and opened his eyes lazily, squinting at the too bright light spilling in from the outside. He blinked, then closed his eyes again and stretched thoroughly, doing it the way, Aziraphale reflected not for the first time in his life, only a creature whose true form was a serpent could pull off. Then, all of a sudden, the shirt he was still wearing from yesterday – Aziraphale hadn't had either strength or moral resolve to undress him by himself – disappeared out of sight, apparently having been sent into other planes of existence by the whim of the demon's thought. Aziraphale smiled mildly as Crowley stretched again, eyes still closed, as if he was hell bent on feeling every thread of his burgundy satin sheets with every square inch of his skin. The long muscles on his arms and back, now exposed to the daylight, flexed and stretched in a manner Aziraphale found appealing.

Then the amber eyes opened again and peered straight at him, so warm and contented and familiar.

"Hi, angel," Crowley sighed, apparently not a tiny bit surprised to see him in his bedroom, his voice a velvety murmur, and Aziraphale's smile grew wider without his knowing it.

"Good morning, my dear."

"So, the world didn't end, after all, huh?" Crowley asked, now flashing him a sleepy grin, which, as far as Aziraphale was concerned, suited the demon unforgivably well. "Unless it's some hallucination, devised by one of _them_ as a kind of punishment, meaning I'll wake up in the blink of an eye in a dungeon or something."

Not breaking the eye contact, Aziraphale reached out to place his hand upon the back of Crowley's outstretched one. "All's well," he replied simply.

He didn't take his hand away then. He quite liked it where it was. Crowley seemed to approve, too, as his thumb started to draw minute circles on his skin. _So this was where they stood now,_ Aziraphale thought, fascinated. They spent a while just looking at each other, silently, their hands joint.

"I must apologise, though," Aziraphale sighed at last, giving Crowley's hand a soft squeeze. He owed the demon an apology and he was a creature of principle. The sooner it was done with, the better.

"Whatever for, angel?" Crowley smirked, raising one of his perfect eyebrows in a perfectly quizzical arch. "Just what on this wonderful planet did you do while I was out?"

"I'm talking about what I said to you back there in Tadfield," Aziraphale sighed and winced inwardly. Boy, but he _was_ embarrassed. "It was an atrocious thing to say, and I didn't really mean it the way it came out. To assume you couldn't feel that atmosphere, couldn't feel the--"

"--the _love_?" Crowley interrupted him, in an oddly good-natured manner. Aziraphale fell silent mid-word, taken aback. "_Of__ course,_ I could feel the love. It was all over the place, just bloody _tingling _all over my skin," he huffed, squeezing Aziraphale's hand in turn. "The miracle was that all that love didn't actually _disintegrate_ me on the spot. I was about to tell you just _that_ when the witch woman threw herself under my wheels."

"Miss Anathema Device," Aziraphale smiled, shaking his head a little. That she stayed alive having collided with Crowley's Bentley, given the way the demon tended to drive, was another miracle.

"That very one," Crowley nodded as well as he could while still technically lying on his pillow. "So stop bothering yourself with that and don't even think about starting on that bloody _spark of goodness_ topic again or I'll have to throw you out of the window. I'm done with you spark-goodnessing me all the time!"

"That'd be against the Arrangement, my dear," Aziraphale smiled, immensely relieved to see the demon acting just as normally as he was supposed to.

"Arrangement my arse!" Crowley huffed, and his fingers tightened on Aziraphale's ever so lightly. "It's grown a bit obsolete, if you ask me, anyway."

"I'd still feel better if I could somehow make it up to you, though. You didn't deserve a reprimand like that," Aziraphale said, wondering which points in their millennia-old Arrangement they could possibly update. He could come up with a few, perhaps.

"Well," Crowley smirked mischievously. "Treat me to a dinner at the Ritz maybe? _For starters_."

It was Aziraphale's turn to raise his eyebrow, but he grinned all the same, suddenly feeling weirdly, impossibly, _younger_.

"It'd be my pleasure," he replied, getting up from his spot beside Crowley's bed and reluctantly parting with the warmth of the demon's hand. His eyes didn't seem to be very keen on leaving the expanse of the bare skin of Crowley's torso, either, protruding collar bones and sharp elbows and all. "Take your time, I'll go make us some breakfast. And then, first things first, we could begin by checking on St. James's and the ducks."

What Aziraphale heard upon leaving Crowley's bedroom was the demon's quiet but ever so genuine laughter and his muttering something about ineffable angels. He grinned, closing the door gently behind himself. The first day of the rest of their lives was promising to be a good one.

*****

As if blinking out of a daydream, Aziraphale looked back at the demon still standing beside his plants. There was no soot on his face now, and his clothes didn't have the acrid stench of smoke and burnt rubber lingering on them, but that dreadful haunted look from after the non-Apocalypse times was back in his eyes, and this time Aziraphale thought he had an idea of what exactly that particular look implied.

Crowley was all about love, be it for good wine, classy suits, snakeskin shoes, his plants or Aziraphale himself, and for the second time in his existence all those things were threatened to be taken away from him. He'd given up on his beloved Bentley to venture out on this protracted run they'd spent the past six months on; his classy suits had been abandoned a few days into their journey, as it had proved rather troublesome to keep them in decent condition without resorting to magic every now and then; he'd returned here to a gardenful of dead plants he cherished so much; and on top of it all, there was a suspicion nagging at Aziraphale that Crowley had been losing him, too, a little part at a time over the course of the past months. What the ex-angel couldn't quite understand was why it had taken him so bloody long to notice the changes in Crowley's condition, and in his own too.

Once the demon was properly convinced that there wasn't a trap waiting for them to step into to drag them both to whatever places were reserved for the likes of them, they spent the remaining part of the evening in a quiet and slightly awkward fashion – after all, it was the first time over the past half a year that they were home. It seemed there was too much space around, Crowley's flat appearing huge after various hotel and motel rooms and poky little cabins they'd stayed in. Crowley ordered a pizza by phone, now perfectly accustomed to doing most things the human way, and miracled up a bottle of wine, since finding a good one and getting it delivered would require way too much fuss. They had a late dinner in the demon's pristine kitchen, pointedly avoiding the topic of Heaven, Hell and Future, either remote or the immediate, and then went to bed, the start of the night finding Crowley reading to Aziraphale. It seemed as if coming back to London, to the life which reminded so much about the past, was tugging at some strings in Aziraphale's soul, strings which he had virtually forgotten were there at all. He hadn't opened a single book ever since they'd fled, apprehensive it would trigger memories of the past he wouldn't be able to bear with.

Tonight, though, seeing Crowley pull a book out of his bag and put it onto the bedside table on his side of the bed evoked the desire to immerse into a story again, which was nothing short of refreshing and gave Aziraphale another lease of hope. Besides, Crowley was a good reader, just like he was a good story-teller. His voice was a nice, smooth baritone. His articulation was flawless. It flowed, but not as a forest stream or a mountain current would, it flowed like a deep, powerful river, calm on the surface but concealing black whirlpools and strong currents underneath. It captivated you, ever so gently, lulled you into trusting it, and then took you away into the unknown. The fascinating kind of unknown, promising, taunting and alluring. He could sing fairly well, too, sometimes a bit off-tune, more in a rock'n'roll star fashion rather than any other, and he sounded surprisingly nice singing along to Queen, but what Aziraphale really treasured were those rare occasions when the demon agreed to read to him, when the stillness of the night filled with stories which came alive in his voice, a titillating feeling no angel had any right to have, perhaps, but had Aziraphale ever been your ordinary angel? 

Crowley cast a somewhat funny glance his way when Aziraphale asked him to read aloud, as if compromised by a flicker of hope but not daring to let it bloom, not letting it reassure him, and Aziraphale couldn't blame him for it. He did agree, though, without questioning anything, and the former angel was grateful for that much. He wanted to share with him some conclusions he'd come to recently, but since he barely understood anything at all himself, he didn't dare do it just yet.

Aziraphale didn't manage to listen to Crowley properly enough, though. Part of it was the tiredness after the excruciatingly long journey they'd taken, but mostly Aziraphale simply couldn't take his eyes off the demon, as if able to truly see him properly and clearly for the first time in a very long while, and once again he asked himself how come he'd been missing so much lately.

Crowley's lips were moving. Looking sensual and luscious, they seemed to have an enchanting force to them, every single line, every single crease of skin a fervent promise of something forbidden yet pleasurable. The full, sensuous bottom lip, bordering on the fine line between innocent and obscene; the sharper, somewhat feral, curve of the upper, thinner, one. Crowley's mouth, Aziraphale thought as he watched him, was the perfect personification of the demon himself – sensual and beautiful and gentle, but full of concealed sharpness. The result which that contrast induced was absolutely intoxicating. Aziraphale blinked, swallowed and let his eyes shamelessly zoom on Crowley's lips again.

There were certain things to being a demon – Aziraphale still could hardly comprehend he was one of those, he certainly didn't quite feel like one, in the majority of aspects, anyway – which were different from perceiving oneself as an angel, and the most prominent of them was that now he could feel desire way more acutely. It's not that he didn't feel that while being an angel, as a matter of fact, he did, and he couldn't be sure whether it was typical of all the angelic flock, or solely his personal trait, just like Crowley's decidedly undemonic ability to love and sympathise, or if he'd simply spent way too long among humans and, perhaps, in the company of a certain demon. The thing was, though, it had been way easier to keep it under control while he was still divine, and now it was as if all the safety switches were off, allowing him to understand for the first time in millennia what kind of passions humans were ruled by all their lives. It was no wonder Hell used their desires against them; they were just so vulnerable to temptation while wanting something, even if that something was the most beautiful thing in the world.

Presently, Aziraphale watched one of them most beautiful things dressed in nothing but a pair of boxers and a black, angry AC/DC t-shirt, stretched on his stomach on the mattress with a book in his hands, bathed in the soft light of the sconce above the bed. Crowley had let his hair grow longer than he'd been accustomed to as of late, and now a few stray strands were falling over his brow, almost down to the level of his eyes.

He had fine hair, Crowley did. Black as the raven's wing and smooth as silk, it started to wave ever so lightly if it reached a certain length. He'd sported plenty of various haircuts over the course of the six millennia that Aziraphale had known him, most of them styled to the whim of the latest fashion of whatever era it was, quite predictably, of course – Crowley was the Original Tempter, after all, and even though he'd never said so himself, Aziraphale suspected that he'd actually given a start to a good number of fashion trends over the years. Which should by no means come as a surprise – he had always been truly, almost angelically, beautiful, and the hard lines and sharp angles that the last six millennia of being a demon had carved into his face only made his appearance more enticing. If you took all the sharpness out of it, the occasional suspicious squint of his eyes, the hard lines running from the sides of his nose to the corner of his lips, the hard-set outlines of his mouth, then you'd perhaps get an image of an angel he'd once been. Crowley had been admired by many – male and female alike – he'd been sung to, he'd had odes dedicated to him and his portraits painted, and Aziraphale was secretly convinced – even though he didn't have any evidence – that quite a few men and women had had a lock of his hair put in a locket they wore around their necks in the previous centuries. 

Oh, Crowley was good-looking enough for practically any haircut to suit him fine, but what Aziraphale liked best, what he thought suited him most and really did bring out that elusive vulnerability of his features, was when Crowley let it grow a little. He liked – or should he say, adored – this slightly dishevelled look, _bedroom hair_ was how Crowley himself had once put it with a complacent smirk twisting his lips when Aziraphale had had the carelessness to compliment him on it (_and oh, angel, are you even allowed to like such things? _he had all but purred back then, but then Aziraphale had simply dismissed him with a wave of his hand).

Usually, as Aziraphale had noticed, Crowley didn't let it grow too long on purpose. Being stylish was on purpose. Being dressed to kill was on purpose. Being the flash bastard was on purpose. The dishevelled look and longish hair tended to appear when Crowley seemed to momentarily forget his purpose. It was like that in Sodom and Gomorrah, and during the tyrannical rule of Caligula back in Rome, and in the notorious fourteenth century. Near the end of the WWII, as well, and every other time when he'd been completely shocked by what humanity was doing to itself, even though he'd have never admitted it for the life of him. Living here on Earth had been rubbing off on him, too, Aziraphale thought with a strange kind of poignant fondness. Crowley loved humanity, but sometimes what humanity did devastated even him, the creature of Hell that he was, and Aziraphale loved him even more for it. 

The former angel looked at that shiny, smooth black hair again, stifling the urge to reach out and put the stray strand behind Crowley's ear as it would most likely distract him from reading, and he didn't want that. The light from the sconce made his profile a stark palette of shades, accentuating his pointy nose and good cheekbones, and as his long eye-lashes fluttered every so often, they threw dark shadows across his cheeks. The wet tip of his inhumanly agile tongue nimbly darted over his full lower lip or the sharper than normal points of his eyeteeth. His voice sounded calm, but he was worried even now, Aziraphale knew him all too well to be able to tell the little, subtle signs that gave it away; worried still even when Aziraphale himself had almost stopped.

Aziraphale suppressed a sigh and watched Crowley some more. There were dark circles underneath his eyes, and, complemented by his now even more prominent haggardness, his face looked pale and exhausted. His lips were chafed because he kept unconsciously nibbling at them time and time and time again, sometimes hard enough to draw blood. His hands shook as he turned the pages, his fingers nervously worrying the corners until they became dog-eared. He would smoothen them then, silently, but in a while, it started all over again.

And then, suddenly, Aziraphale had a completely different recollection, almost breath-taking in its vividness. He remembered the time when those elegant hands looked deft and sure, fingers fluttering boldly over black and white keys, never missing a note, never faltering. 

*****

It was 19th-century Vienna, the ex-angel recalled dreamily, eyes getting unfocused on Crowley's lips and focusing inwardly on a completely different setting instead. Franz Liszt was giving a concert there, and tickets were nigh on impossible to get two weeks prior to the performance, and utterly impossible in a few hours before it was due to start. Neither of them had bothered to get them beforehand – Aziraphale because he hadn't even planned to end up in Vienna, Crowley due to the simple fact that he never bothered to get any tickets whatsoever on general principle unless Aziraphale's nagging got absolutely unbearable.

And still, they were going to attend the concert. The angel was not sure he wanted to know how exactly the demon was going to provide them with seats, but he suspected it amounted to some respectable couple in the front rows suddenly feeling unwell, or having a minor food poisoning, or a minor road accident and thus effectively and very fortunately being unable to come to the performance. Aziraphale never asked Crowley how he'd managed to get the tickets in the end. The temptation to see it was far too great for him to go on a righteous rant on morale values for demons. Not that Crowley would have listened to it, anyway.

Their seats were in the third row, very close to the stage, which allowed a perfect view of the piano and the pianist himself. Crowley excused himself not long before the performance was due to begin, making Aziraphale open his mouth in indignation, but before he was able to say anything at all, the demon's hand was on his wrist, squeezing lightly as he mouthed that he'd be right back. Aziraphale pursed his lips, but remained silent. When it was about to start and there was still no sight of Crowley anywhere in the vicinity, he began to wonder what the old serpent was up to. He bet it was to no good, certainly, but he couldn't even start to imagine what kind of prank the demon could possibly have in mind this time. 

He wasn't made to wait for long, however. The applause broke suddenly, long and thunderous, drawing Aziraphale's attention back to the stage where a tall, slender figure dressed in a black, well-tailored, suit appeared. His first thought, while his hands kept clapping with the rest of the audience, was that the Hungarian piano virtuoso looked particularly otherworldly tonight. And then the realisation came, and Aziraphale froze in his seat, staring at the pianist and unable to believe his eyes. He must have been dreaming. He blinked, but Crowley – for it was Crowley, dressed according to the latest heights of fashion – remained where he was, right on the stage, leisurely strolling towards the piano. He was smiling. No, Aziraphale amended. The demon was positively glowing, literally radiating mirth and mischief in waves. 

He smiled at the audience – a reserved, but somehow still inexplicably naughty, smile – and gave a little nod of acknowledgement. The people around Aziraphale burst into a louder applause, apparently not noticing anything out of ordinary, while he just kept sitting there, his hands folded in his lap and his jaw – he was quite certain and rather unpleasantly aware of it – was gravitating towards the floor. Hastily, he made his face acquire a slightly more acceptable expression – as acceptable as he could muster anyway – and shook his head in utter disbelief at the boldly – almost insolently – grinning demon just a few metres away. Crowley winked back at him and gracefully took his place at the instrument.

And then the music came, and the entire audience lapsed into silence with a hushed sigh of awe, and Aziraphale forgot all about his initial burst of indignation. The melody flowed through the auditorium, clear as the dripping of the thawing snow in the spring, gentle as the song of the nightingale in the St. James's, growing more powerful with every touch of Crowley's fingers. They fluttered over the keys with the speed which should be decidedly impossible for a human body to perform, and Aziraphale found himself utterly awestruck for the second time in a row. This time because of how beautiful the dance of those fingers was. The sleeves of the demon's shirt were rolled almost up to his elbows, thus exposing his forearms, the sinewy muscles and tendons playing underneath the canvas of pale skin as his hands waltzed, making the music ripple and swell and surge. Crowley's head moved in tune with it, and that ever-present, elusive smile never left his lips.

Goodness gracious, but he was enjoying himself, Aziraphale noticed, and not without a touch of warmth. He was positively stunned by the demon's insufferable audacity, and at the back of his mind he did wonder with quite a touch of concern what Crowley had done to the maestro Liszt himself, but at the same time he simply couldn't help his own, soft and very tender, smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. Crowley was having a hell of a time – pardon the pun – and he was doing it with grace. Fascinated, Aziraphale let himself flow with the music, never taking his eyes of those sure, precise and so doubtlessly talented hands. He did have quite an advantage in skills compared to humans, of course, but by this moment Aziraphale hardly cared anymore. His demon truly was a sight.

Later, a symphony away, when he was done, Crowley sauntered off the stage, obviously pleased with himself and with a bad thing done well, followed by the roar of applause. A few minutes later, Franz himself strolled back on stage as if nothing had happened. The audience completely missed the trick this time around, too. Aziraphale stayed in his place until the end of the concert. Crowley, as he would tell him afterwards, listened to the rest in the backstage area. Later, he treated Aziraphale to the finest dinner in one of the most luxurious Viennese restaurants, seemingly physically unable to stop smiling like the proverbial cat who ate the cream. Aziraphale, in his turn, could not for the life of him be cross with anyone who was literally beaming the way Crowley did. He let the demon boast on, occasionally throwing a brief admiring glance at his slender hands, remembering with a sort of awe how they had worked miracles over the keys of the pianoforte.

*****

Now, back in Crowley's bedroom, Aziraphale watched as those hands closed the book he'd been reading with an almost reverent gesture. His lips moved, and the ex-angel realised the demon was apparently saying something to him.

"Pardon me, my dear?" he asked as the vision had faded completely, and locked his eyes with Crowley's.

And, oh, there _was_ still a smile in them, but it was a different kind of smile. It was that kind of smile which spoke little of merriment and volumes of something bordering on dismay. Aziraphale's heart sank as he wondered, detachedly, for just how long that look had been permeating everything Crowley did and how come he'd never really noticed it until recently.

"I was saying, you aren't happy, are you?" Crowley repeated.

Aziraphale opened his mouth to object. And then closed it, lowering his eyes, too, not being able to hold his demon's gaze. Crowley's voice was soft but not questioning. Outright lies were not going to work – they'd known each other a bit too well for that kind of tricks.

Still, he ventured, "It takes time to get used to, doesn't it?"

"I didn't mean that as a reprimand, angel," Crowley sighed quietly, and Aziraphale's eyes darted back up towards his. 

Of course, he knew that Crowley obviously had not, but the demon's sad smile was enough of a reprimand for Aziraphale, and he believed he deserved one. Knowing Crowley as well as he did, he should also understand that the demon was probably taking all the blame for not being able to make him feel at peace with himself.

"No, I guess I haven't been," he finally conceded, shaking his head a little. "But…" he trailed off, not sure he could really convey in words what he'd been pondering about as of late.

"But?" Crowley prompted, and that unguarded, hopeful look in his eyes once again made the ex-angel's heart squeeze.

"I've been thinking recently… these past couple of days, in fact…"

The way Crowley's eyes widened as he'd said it, and a flash of worry and fear in them, so intense and tangible, made Aziraphale trail off again.

"You're not going to leave, are you?" Crowley suddenly blurted, the knuckles of the hand holding the book whitening visibly.

"What?" Aziraphale asked, utterly taken aback.

"I…" Crowley dropped his eyes, looking both miserable and flustered. "It's just that… you know, when I Fell, I met you afterwards, and it…" Crowley dragged in a long, trembling breath, Aziraphale watching him in utter awe, knowing Crowley had been worried sick because of him these past months, but never ever suspecting the extent of it. "Well, I guess you could say it saved my sorry ass back then, and I figured I haven't been doing quite as good a job of helping you deal with it all now, so…" he huffed, the sound coming out so bitter Aziraphale felt his skin crawl. "Maybe it's my fault I can't make it any better for you, I've been trying, angel, but if--"

"Crowley?" Aziraphale interrupted him before he had a chance to say what he knew he was going to say, startled by this sudden revelation and more than a little aghast.

Crowley did fall silent and gave him a glance, both mortified and crestfallen, which made Aziraphale's heart sink.

"Oh my dearest…" he murmured and reached out to his demon, to this wonderful, beautiful, kindest being he'd ever known, and pulled him into his arms, Crowley surrendering willingly enough, his own arms wrapping around the angel's middle with equal force. "I'm so sorry…"

He felt the demon shake his head against his chest, but he only held him closer still, not allowing him to object because now that he'd just started to truly comprehend the extent of the predicament they'd got themselves in, he wasn't going to stay silent, had no right to stay silent.

"You're stuck with me," he whispered. "And don't you dare blame yourself for anything that happened, you hear me? Oh dear God…" he muttered, still stunned, acutely feeling with every single square inch of his body how desperately the demon was clinging to him. "That's not at all what I was going to talk to you about, I--"

And that was when Crowley suddenly tensed in his arms, drawing back a moment later. His eyes shot wide open, the slit pupils dilating so suddenly and so much they started to look almost human, and the expression of pure, immense terror in them made Aziraphale's breath catch in his throat. The demon's body stiffened next to his own, as if every single muscle in it tensed all at once.

"What--" the ex-angel started to say, but he had barely managed to articulate the first word when Crowley was already hurriedly extricating himself from his arms.

_"Fuck!"_ he hissed, and there was so much emotion in that short curse. _"Not now, not now!"_

"Crowley--"

But Crowley was already out of bed, grabbing the plant mister of Holy Water from the night stand and sprinting – literally sprinting, doing it so hastily he nearly tripped over his own feet – towards the bedroom door. He looked almost comical, dressed in that black AC/DC t-shirt and boxers, tall and slender, his hair in a mess, prancing across the room, but his terrified, muttered curses – that _'oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck'_ chanted like a mantra – didn't manage to provoke any urge to laugh in Aziraphale. If anything, they planted in him a sense of terror mixed with shock so strong that all he could do for the following few moments was sit and stare after Crowley in dull paralyse, his eyes open wide, his heart hammering in his chest. He couldn't quite comprehend yet what the problem was, but his inner feeling was positive there _was_ a problem, and a very big one at that.

"You stay there!" was all that came through the door that had been flung open.

And then it suddenly dawned upon him, too. The room was filling with a smell – a stench, really – strong and acrid, and Aziraphale could only come up with one idea where it was coming from. So they had come, after all. Hell must have come for both of them.

_"Oh, bugger…"_ Aziraphale half-sighed, half-muttered under his breath, getting out of bed with much less grace, which wasn't at all important right now, and with much less speed, which was.

Crowley was out there somewhere, facing he didn't even know what, half-naked, distressed and vulnerable. With a stupid plant mister filled to the brim with Holy Water. What if there was a trap? What if they used it against Crowley? What if--

"Oh, _bugger_!" Aziraphale swore again, already on his way out.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *'The Bottom Line' by Depeche Mode


	10. Chapter 10

_Who measured the distance from the planets_  
_ Right down to your big blue spinning world_  
_ And heartbeats and tears and nervous laughter_  
_ Spilling down all over you, girl_

_Who was it, yeah you know, we real cool_  
_ And the world keeps on turning.*©_

**************

The stench of brimstone got stronger as Aziraphale neared the living room, and then a low, drawling, voice reached his ears.

"_Craaawly_," it droned from around the corner, and the ex-angel sped up, bare feet paddling over the lacquered wooden floor. 

He didn't quite know what exactly he was going to do once he reached Crowley and whoever it was there, but he was determined not to leave his demon to face whatever was coming alone. The voice sounded like it could possibly belong to Hastur, but then again, demons' voices generally tended to merge into some nasty nasal drawl for all he knew, so unlike Crowley's own, so it really was anyone's guess who their uninvited night guest was.

"Get the hell out of here!"

Aziraphale heard Crowley, sounding so unnerved as if he was on the verge of breaking into a shriek. In a heartbeat, he could finally – thankfully – see the demon.

"Both of you, get fucking lost! Now. I'm not joking."

The sight that revealed itself to Aziraphale's eyes made him stop in his tracks at the very bottom of the stairs. Crowley, looking profoundly terrified but deathly determined all the same, was standing in the middle of his living room, bare feet sunk into that very same white carpet which had once witnessed the total extermination of one of their current and very much unwanted guests. The plant mister was tightly clutched in the demon's hand, the tendons standing out on his wrist like ropes. It was shaking, but barely so. Aziraphale had a brief moment to wonder just what took Crowley to force it to be this steady.

In the room, there were two dusky individuals shedding the stench of brimstone profusely. The bulkier one, most certainly Hastur, dressed in a frayed coat and an even shabbier hat, was holding his hands up in a mock parody of surrender. Mock, Aziraphale thought, because his eyes remained cold and determined even despite the nozzle of the plant mister filled with Holy water just some couple of metres away, directed straight at him. The second being, thinner and taller, wearing a dirty trench coat, was practically cowering a little way behind him. That had to be Ligur, of course; and being Ligur, it was no wonder he looked quite a bit more uncomfortable than his associate. The young Antichrist had indeed set him back to existence, but he did have the right to be nearly pissing himself at the mere sight of a plant mister, Aziraphale thought with an utterly inappropriate pang of sympathy for the creature.

"Don't be an idiot, Crawly," Hastur went on, a nasty grin revealing a mouthful of decidedly unattractive teeth, and then his eyes snapped to Aziraphale, and his grin grew even bigger. And nastier. "Oh, and there he is! A bad time of day to you, Mister Aziraphale. How did it feel to Fall from Grace? A once in a lifetime experience, isn't it?"

He leered, mockingly lifting up his hat in a parody of a greeting. Aziraphale remained where he was, silent.

"Been a while since we last had the pleasure to meet, I believe," he droned on, his hands still in the air. "And it seems I owe you an apology, sir. It is true, my opinion of you wasn't all that high in the past but I must admit you have greatly impressed me recently. And not only me! Our Boss has got particularly interested in you."

"Shut up, Hastur, or your boss will have to scrap what pitiful pile of ash will remain of you right off this very carpet," Crowley hissed, his voice sounding both outraged and more than quite a touch hysterical. 

Aziraphale winced, inwardly. This didn't sound good.

"He's still _your_ boss, too, Crawly, or have you gone too mellow to remember that?" Hastur spat, but he didn't spare a single glance in Crowley's direction. His cold eyes remained fixed on Aziraphale. "So I'd watch my tongue, if I were you. Count it as a piece of friendly advice."

"Fuck you," Crowley snapped, taking a new hold on the plant mister. 

"So, where was I? Ah, quite impressed with you, Mister Aziraphale. First that excellent mastery of cold weapons when you _killed_ that human, in cold blood, I must add," Hastur leered, taking particular pleasure in articulating the _'killed'_. Aziraphale felt himself grit his own teeth. "Truth be told, we didn't expect you to be that quick or that blood-thirsty," he chuckled nastily. Aziraphale winced, this time not inwardly, against his own will remembering the lifeless body of the man who'd tried to murder Crowley. "Then those tricks our Crawly taught you, didn't you accomplish those with flourish? The tailback you caused wasn't anything exceptional, but it did have some nasty reverberations. Speeding up, minor accidents here and there, road rage, people being late for work, people taking it out on their friends and family, some nice domestic violence…"

Aziraphale's breath caught in his throat. All of a sudden, he couldn't breathe. He couldn't have done that, couldn't have caused that much harm… or could he?

"He's bullshitting you, angel," Crowley hissed through his teeth.

"Oh, but why would I do that, Crawly? You were the one who offered him to cause some mischief, I'm just congratulating your friend on the great results. And don't get all surprised now! We've been keeping an eye on you. Really impressive, I must say. And your present looks, Mister Aziraphale…"

Hastur almost purred his name, making it sound obscene, and for the first time since he'd come to the living room, Aziraphale got uncomfortably aware of his own appearance. A plain white t-shirt and a pair of white briefs was all he was wearing, and now Hastur's eyes were positively devouring him. Even Ligur was studying him, even if somewhat timidly. To Aziraphale it felt like two pairs of cold leeks were crawling all over him, his bare feet, his bare thighs, his crotch, his body, his face, his hair. He wanted to cover himself but he didn't dare move, being almost certain that if he miracled any additional item of clothing it would count as a defeat.

"Being a demon suits you well," Hastur went on, flicking his tongue over his lips. Aziraphale cringed inwardly. "Lost some weight and the taste for tartan, haven't you? Do you have any idea how many immortal souls you've tarnished over the course of your voyage just by looking the way you do? And oh my, what horizons could open to you with that impressive package in your pants and those lovely curls on your head. You could become our leading specialist in the Seduction Department, you know?"

The impressive package in Aziraphale's pants shrivelled considerably in utter disgust.

"I'm going to kill you, Hastur, I swear, if you don't shut your filthy mouth and get out of here _right now_," Crowley said, voice low, now as much infuriated as he sounded hysterical.

"A jealous guy, isn't he, our old Crawly," Hastur continued, completely ignoring Crowley's threat. "What's wrong, old serpent? Afraid that your boyfriend could steal your glory, huh? Not that there's such thing as glory in relation to you, though. Your first and last glorious moment happened in the Garden, I presume, and that's been quite a while without accomplishing anything glorious since then, don't you agree?" Hastur never broke the eye contact with Aziraphale, though. "How does the prospect of a marvellous career sound to you, my friend? We're hiring."

Crowley's free hand shot sideways and a little behind him, as if he wished to prevent Aziraphale from… from what? Walking into Hastur's open arms? He never would, for the life of him. Crowley's hand was shaking and Aziraphale dearly wished he could hold it, just like they did back then during the failed Apocalypse. Who knew what was going to happen next and if he would ever be able to hold it again at all. He remained where he was, though, not wishing to stir more trouble. Crowley looked completely wound up.

"We're not going to offer you twice, Aziraphale. You might never have another chance."

"Sssince when has Hell ssstarted giving the right to choosse, huh?" Crowley hissed.

"We aren't talking to you, Crawly," Hastur muttered, his gaze still heavy on Aziraphale.

"I decline, as you should have known I would," Aziraphale finally said, in a cold and detached voice. He suddenly felt dizzy with fear for Crowley, fear for himself, fear for the future which, he'd almost come to believe, they would have.

"He's not one of yours, you suckers!" Crowley hissed, his voice brimming with tension and what sounded like almost irate sort of relief. "Get the fuck out of my flat! Bugger off before I bloody do you both in right here!"

He shook his hand – the one clutching the plant mister – violently, and a fine spray of mist flew out of its nozzle. Aziraphale gasped. Ligur shrieked. Hastur swore and ducked sideways. The mist dissipated in the air, having seemingly harmed no one. Crowley looked equally terrified and surprised. Seeing him like this, pale and half-dressed, with his eyes glinting feverishly, Aziraphale had a feeling that he apparently hadn't intended to use the plant mister just then. His hand must have got sweaty, or his muscles had spasmed, or he'd shaken it way too much. Still, the action had been done, and it seemed to have boosted Crowley's courage. His hand had got steadier. His grin was manic.

_"Get. Out."_ He motioned with the plant mister towards the door. "I'm not joking. I did it once, and I'll do it again, Hastur. Aziraphale's not going anywhere."

For the first time since Aziraphale's appearance in the living room, Hastur's eyes drew back to Crowley. "We'll see each other again, Crawly. You're making it worse for both of you," he promised coldly and headed for the front door. Ligur backed after him, stealthily, his apprehensive gaze never leaving the nozzle of the plant mister. 

The front door shut behind them with a totally undramatic soft click, and for a while the only thing that broke the silence in Crowley's pristine living room was the sound of his own harsh breathing. He didn't lower the plant mister. It was still aimed at the now empty space right in front of him. His arm was shaking badly. 

Tentatively, Aziraphale took a step forward, only now getting aware of how madly his own heart was beating. It pulsed sickly in the middle of his throat, echoing in his ears with hammering thuds. The demon didn't move. Aziraphale stepped closer still, cautiously, as if a sharp move or a sound too loud could provoke him to completely lose his nerve. And who knew, maybe it could. For all he could judge by Crowley's state, the demon was on the verge of a breakdown, mental or physical or both. Aziraphale himself didn't seem to be, not really, even despite the possibility of having been dragged straight to Hell, but then again, he hadn't seen all what Crowley had seen over the six millennia he'd been working for the Downstairs. He supposed he had every right to come completely unhinged after doing what he'd just done.

"Crowley…"

The touch of Aziraphale's hands on the demon's upper arms was virtually weightless, but he gave a start all the same. A soft hiss, a sound on the verge of turning into a hushed groan, escaped his mouth. He still didn't lower the plant mister, continuing to point it defensively at the sheer emptiness of his own living room.

"It's all right, my dear," Aziraphale whispered against the side of the demon's neck. His one hand curled over the curve of his bony shoulder, the other cautiously wrestled the plant mister out of his clenched fingers. "They're gone, Crowley. It's all right."

But the thing was, it wasn't. No, not really. It wasn't, it hadn't been, and the worst thing was that he didn't know if it would ever be all right at all. 

Aziraphale hastily placed the plant mister on the coffee table – mere holding it brought up some deep, innate dread from the very depths of his soul – and then clang close to Crowley's skinny frame that was literally thrumming with tension.

"It's all right," he repeated nonetheless, finding the words utterly inadequate, but there wasn't much he could say apart from that.

Closing his eyes, Aziraphale let his forehead rest against Crowley's shoulder and let out a breath of relief when the demon's hand found his own – even if a trifle unsteadily – and squeezed it in return. He didn't know how long they'd been standing in that fashion – he was reluctant to let Crowley go, so no matter how long it'd been, it wasn't enough anyway – when Crowley turned around to face him, his hands coming to rest on both sides of Aziraphale's neck. He seemed to have got himself under control again, but the expression on his face was set and grave, and it invoked another fit of dread in Aziraphale's.

"What?" he asked, almost breathless.

Crowley smiled, apparently aiming at something reassuring, but what it turned out to be looked a far cry from anything of that sort. His grin looked freaked out, and complemented by the look of abject terror in his wide-open eyes, it was something Aziraphale would prefer to never see again, not on the face of someone he loved as dearly as he loved his demon.

"I guess I need some lurking to do, huh?" Crowley said, the corners of his mouth twitching, baring the very tips of his canines. 

"No--"

"You stay here, angel--"

"No!" Aziraphale shook his head violently, his hands clasping around Crowley's forearms in a vice grip. "Crowley--"

"I'll be back before you know it." The demon relocated his palms to Aziraphale's cheeks. "Won't do anything stupid, promise."

"Crowley, please--" Aziraphale clutched at the demon's wrists instead, but the latter was already backing towards the front door, shaking his head. His eyes shone deliriously.

"You stay here, Aziraphale. Keep the plant mister in the vicinity," he was trying to speak calmly and reasonably, but his voice betrayed his badly concealed anxiety. It made Aziraphale even more dismayed. "I'll be right back."

"But--"  
  
But there were no 'but's with Crowley, and he knew it. There was a soft touch of the demon's lips on the corner of his mouth – hasty and feeling unpleasantly desperate – and a heartbeat later Crowley was gone.

"You flash bastard," Aziraphale muttered at the closed front door, dismally.

He simply stood there for a while, in a sort of dull comatose, his feet freezing on the cold tiles in the hall. The silence of the flat suddenly closed in on him, heavy and oppressive, almost suffocating in its pervasive absoluteness. It didn't reassure him a single bit, but rather caused stifling panic. He couldn't remember if he'd ever been left alone in Crowley's flat before. If anything, he couldn't quite remember the time when he'd been left alone over the past six months or so at all, his demon's presence a constant support beside him, something he'd somehow come to take for granted, and the realisation was shocking. Only some thirty years ago, before they'd been quite officially drawn together because of the Antichrist business, they could see each other a few times a month or even more rarely and consider it frequent enough. And now, just a few decades later, he felt totally lost in Crowley's big luxurious flat with the demon having been absent for no more than several minutes. Thirty years was half a lifetime for some humans, but what was it for a creature who measured time in millennia?

The mere realisation of the fact that Crowley was nowhere near him was dreary. Still standing in the hall, forlorn, Aziraphale contemplated going after him, but much as he wanted to, it didn't seem like a wise thing to do. He had no clue where he could possibly look for Crowley – he could be on his way straight to Hell for all Aziraphale knew. And what if he came back and Aziraphale was not be here? No, that would cause more trouble than it would do any good to anyone, so the only choice was to follow the demon's instructions and remain where he was. 

So he did. Reluctantly, but he did, and of course, his agitated waiting didn't end after half an hour. Aziraphale wondered what he would have to do if Crowley didn't come back in an hour. In two. What if he didn't come back in the morning? What if the Dukes of Hell noticed he was following them? What if they caught him? What if, what if, what if…

The endless chain of _what if's _was threatening to drive him to the brink of madness unless he got hold of himself at last. Which was easier said than done, of course. Still, warily, Aziraphale took the plant mister as had been required of him and reluctantly wandered back to the bedroom. Crowley hadn't been born yesterday, he told himself. He hadn't been born at all, he'd seen this planet being created, he'd spent six millennia here and sure thing he knew how to take care of himself. He'd been a demon for even longer than that, unlike Aziraphale himself, so of course he'd learnt to be cautious enough as far as other demons were concerned. He did have quite a touch of paranoia, too, and that'll be good enough in helping him stay safe now. He knew what he was doing, Aziraphale told himself desperately, tittering on the brink of panic, of course he did.

At the back of his mind, though, there was a memory stubbornly trying to resurface, a memory which Aziraphale could definitely deal without. He wondered distractedly whether He had created them all – humans and angels and demons alike – intrinsically paranoid or if it was a feature one acquired over the course of life, after having had to go through certain painful experiences so that they'd start haunting you relentlessly, making you wary ever after. Once bitten twice shy, was it how it worked for every single creature in God's vast universe?

The memory which Aziraphale wasn't capable of banishing revolved around a certain accident which had occurred across the Pond, in the early twentieth century New York, where his and the demon's paths had crossed by chance. _Or was it really that way?_ the ex-angel wondered. Had it been a mere twist of fate or had they by then started to seek each other's company on purpose? Whatever it was, though, they hadn't been destined to enjoy one another's company for long. It was interrupted in a way Aziraphale would dearly wish to forget forever, but every now and then the loathsome memory still resurfaced in his mind, making the fine hairs on his arms and on the nape of his neck stand on end; making him shudder.

*****

They'd been drinking in one of the at the time illegal bars – the alcohol prohibition not taking its toll when one was a supernatural being and knew ways of temptation and coercion and didn't object to exploit such knowledge. Aziraphale was on his way outside, into the damp, chilly air of a New York April night, Crowley trailing behind him, both being well in their cups and feeling just wonderfully in high spirits.

The good mood of the night was, however, ruthlessly ruined when someone – a guy in his thirties, homeless and a morphine addict as the angel found out later – attempted to rob Aziraphale. He must have been cowering there in the shadows, waiting for somebody to leave the seedy drinking facility to attack them. He had intended, apparently, to use the effect of surprise to disorient his future victim, and he would have succeeded had Aziraphale been alone.

As it happened, though, he had a rather drunken demon for company. Drunken, granted, but still a flash bastard, whose reflexes had always been way superior to those humans had any hope of ever possessing. What happened next happened so fast Aziraphale was hardly able to comprehend any of it. He was suddenly pushed – roughly – out of the way and to his right, sent stumbling down onto the wet pavement by a good shove. With an embarrassing squawk, he landed onto his fours, grazing his palms and his knees and most certainly ruining his trousers in the process. He was just about to get back to his feet and ask the demon just what the bloody hell he thought he was doing, when his surprise and indignation were smothered before they had the chance to be voiced.

Beside him, with a very surprised and a very pained gasp, the demon landed onto the wet asphalt, clutching at his side and gasping for air, a quiet _'sssshit'_ hissed through clenched teeth.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale gulped, and then raised his eyes to the man who was standing just a few feet away, a bloodied knife in his hand pointing at both of them. The only thing about him which managed to imprint itself in Aziraphale's memory was his eyes, wide and shining and totally insane. It wasn't the knife and the possibility of being discorporated on a night which had been just marvellous only a few minutes ago that actually got the angel into action, but the look in that man's eyes, frenzied and bloodthirsty.

The only thing Aziraphale did manage to come up with as a means of self-defence was manifesting his wings in all their ethereal, terrifying glory. It didn't fail to produce the desired effect, and after a second of dumbly staring at Aziraphale with his jaw dropping down, the man suddenly started to yell, totally psychotic, staccato shrieks of utter terror, his eyes glued to those of the angel, now certainly expressing unequivocally all the wrath of heaven. Then he threw the knife away from himself as if it were a poisonous spider and took to running. The knife landed with a clink just next to Crowley's foot.

There was a laborious huff, and Aziraphale, his heart beating fast and heavy in his chest, looked down at his friend.

"What a show-off," the demon panted and then lowered himself all the way down to the pavement, his hand still clutching at his side. There was blood at the corners of his mouth.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale seemed to come to his senses in an instant, a stab of fear so cold it felt like he'd just been stabbed by a knife, too, piercing his chest. He knelt beside the demon, cupping his face in his hands. "Crowley, oh dear, are you hurt? Where's it?" he blurted, words leaving his mouth in a string of distressed syllables. "Crowley, talk to me, dear boy, please, Crowley. Crowley!"

"Ssstop fussing, angel." The demon's amber eyes opened half-way and stared into Aziraphale's terrified ones. Then he – infuriatingly – smirked. "Sssems like 'm done for today."

"Shhh, you're not," Aziraphale shook his head, trying to direct as much of his angelic power as he could in order to heal whatever it was in the demon's body that that man had wounded without actually making it any worse. "Just let me--"

Crowley's hand, cold and slick and sticky – Aziraphale didn't dare to take a look but – or mainly _because_ – he was sure it was Crowley's blood, closed on one of his, interrupting him mid-word. "Ssstupid way to be discorporated," he hissed, this time much less intelligibly. "Sssee you some other time, angel. Been nice…"

"Crowley, don't…" Aziraphale muttered, desperately, but the demon's eyes were already closing, one last breath laboriously making its way out of his mouth, and then he was still. "Crowley, my dear…" Aziraphale repeated, very quietly this time, his hands still resting against Crowley's corporation's cheeks that were already growing cold.

The angel winced, then sniffed, then bit his lip. He knew he probably shouldn't get all that dramatic – after all, the demon had been discorporated on so many occasions before – just like himself – that he knew it'd take him about a week to be issued a new corporation and be back on Earth. That said, having spent a few millennia side by side with humans who died so easily, one probably had the right to take death a bit more seriously than the rest of the angelic flock tended to and be left feeling rather wretched after having witnessed a friend being killed, even if – thankfully – only temporarily. Besides, it had been a really nice evening and it was a shame it had ended this way.

_Besides, Crowley had just saved his life_.

Yes, that was probably rather stupid of him to do so, considering none of them could actually be _really_ killed by being poked with a knife, but it still made something in Aziraphale's chest throb. Crowley's just sacrificed his own life saving _his_.

The angel sniffed again. Then he stroked the demon's dead corporation's cheek ever so tenderly, got up, carefully relocated his body to the side of the road where it would be found by one of the frequenters of the bar later that night, and left for his hotel, now totally sober and extremely out of his element.

He made a resolution that once the demon was back on Earth, he'd treat him to the best dinner there would be to choose from. He owed him big time, didn't he? Not exactly for being unnecessarily discorporated, of course, but it was the thought itself and the intention behind it which counted, right?

*****

Presently, back in Crowley's bedroom, Aziraphale shuddered again remembering that dreadful feeling of Crowley's bloodied hand squeezing his own, and wondered despite himself whether the demon did really know better. A wave of sickly terror swept over him, making something twist and turn in his chest and in his gut. And what if Crowley was discorporated this time? What if he was captured and dragged back to Hell? What would they do to him, for his hiding and helping a newly Fallen angel, for defying his superiors, for _loving_? What if they killed him, not his corporation but his _soul_, permanently?

He gave the plant mister a spiteful look and pulled his knees close to himself. The bed he'd been enjoying just an hour ago now felt cold and seemed to be emptier than ever. Aziraphale tried to distract himself, thinking of what would happen next, now that he'd declined the Hell's offer – and Crowley was right, since when had Hell started to offer an option to choose in the first place? Would they come with reinforcement next time? Would they drag them both to Hell by force? Would there be another attempt to get rid, this time, of them both?

But there were no answers at all, and it left Aziraphale feeling even more wretched than before. The digits on the fancy electronic clock on the bedside table shone 1:23 am in soft green light. He knew it had been around midnight when Hastur and Ligur had paid them a visit, and the whole talk with them couldn't have lasted more than ten minutes. Which meant Crowley had been absent for more than an hour now. Aziraphale fidgeted on the bed, hugging his legs more tightly, and let his forehead push against his knees. The feeling of helplessness had always been something he couldn't deal with graciously, and right now it was complemented by the worry for the demon so profound it was making him feel sick. He wished he could do something. He was so tired of not knowing things – a state not terribly familiar to him, he'd once been a Principality, after all. Briefly, he wondered what he'd do if he still were an angel, but, he reckoned, no matter what or who he was, there was absolutely nothing. He just had to sit and wait. Well, at least for a while longer. If the demon didn't come in the next couple of hours, he'd have to get his formerly celestial behind off the bed and try to figure something out at last.

"Oh bugger," Aziraphale muttered under his breath, and started to rock himself lightly back and forth. His customarily perfectly-manicured nails – because old habits died hard, or perhaps because he hadn't really changed all that much, if at all – dug deeply into his shoulders, bruising his skin, but Aziraphale barely noticed.

He was in the middle of thinking that it was going to be the longest – and the most unbearable, too – night he'd ever spent on this planet, when a soft click of the front door down below made him jerk. There was a hurried – too fast for a human, and probably for most of the supernatural beings that were – sound of footsteps, and as Aziraphale lifted his head up, Crowley burst into the bedroom, drenched to the bone, out of breath and definitely ruffled, but visibly unhurt. _Oh, thank--_

His train of thought was derailed because the next moment his arms were full of a tall, lithe and very wet and cold demon.

"_Ohblessssit_," Crowley hissed, doing some humanly implausible tricks with his body and thus accommodating himself flush against Aziraphale. "Ssso fucking cold."

In the matter of the few seconds that followed, Aziraphale's t-shirt and pants and Crowley's soaked shirt and trousers and whatever the hell else he was wearing were sent somewhere into the raw firmament, leaving them both completely naked. Crowley huddled closer, freezing hands and feet and the tip of his nose against Aziraphale's skin, breath shallow and fast against the hollow of his neck. The blanket was trapped beneath them – now completely and hopelessly entangled by the demon's constant impatient wriggling – so it required another small miracle to extract it from underneath their weight and wrap them tightly in it. After a moment's consideration, it subtly turned into a puffy goose down duvet instead of Crowley's luxurious but light blanket. 

"My dear," Aziraphale murmured, out of breath from the sheer shock of Crowley's freezing body against him and trying to hug all of him at the same time, letting him wrap his long cold limbs around him. "Where… oh my _Lord_, Crowley, don't you bloody ever bugger off like--"

"Language, angel," the demon muttered in response, his voice flat and muffled against Aziraphale's chest. Aziraphale couldn't tell whether this remark concerned his mentioning the name of the Lord or the _bugger_ part.

"--don't you _bloody_ ever bugger off like that, you blasted, insufferable, foolhardy idiot of a demon," Aziraphale went on, muffling a sigh of relief into Crowley's silken hair, one which resembled a sob rather than a breath, and for a single moment he sounded horribly like his old-Aziraphale self even to himself, stern and exasperated by constant shenanigans of his counterpart. Crowley let out something simultaneously resembling a groan and a wretched laugh and clung even closer.

"Are you all right?" the former angel murmured, hands roaming restlessly over the expanse of Crowley's cold skin. "You aren't hurt, are you?"

"'m fine," the demon muttered and clung closer.

For a while, they didn't say anything else, Aziraphale simply holding Crowley's shivering and writhing frame. Holding, that was, and thinking. All of a sudden, his mind seemed clear and sober, as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes and he all at once could see things which he earlier hadn't been able to. For instance, how utterly exhausted Crowley… felt to him. No, he'd noticed it before, of course, what with the demon's haggard looks and trembling hands. Now, however, it seemed like he'd finally managed to comprehend the entire scale of the plight he was in. 

Crowley had been a demon for six thousand years, his nature was engraved in him eternally. No, of course, he was a far cry from your ordinary average demon from the Downstairs. Crowley _loved_, for starters. He was a sophisticated soul, and a very sensitive one at that, even though he wouldn't admit it, probably not even to him, probably never, Aziraphale mused. He treasured dearly all he considered important, be it his Bentley, his greenhouse, his sound system or Aziraphale himself. He took great pains in taking good care of it all. And this was exactly what he'd been doing these past few months, caring about _him_ the best he could, and Aziraphale had to admit that he'd been doing it exceptionally well. Taking it all onto his shoulders. Being responsible, without having any single chance for a mistake. Solving a million problems and constantly worrying for both of them. 

Worrying, Aziraphale, mused, taking a new hold on the now slightly less shivering demon in his arms. When Crowley had been worried before, sooner or later he'd ended up on the derelict coach with its frayed upholstery in the back room of Aziraphale's bookshop. Usually, with a glass of something strong laced, for the decency sake, with some tea or cocoa. Almost always ranting and full of indignation, be it about ineffability, dolphins or human truly evil sophisticated imagination which left no work for him to do. And, eternally, there was Aziraphale – the angel Aziraphale with his all-encompassing love for almost everything and the ready remark about ineffability of it all. He'd listen, and nod, and pour more brandy, or whiskey, or hot cocoa, and pat Crowley's shoulder in a friendly manner, and sometimes, he would let Crowley doze off on that very same coach with its frayed upholstery. He'd stay beside him, most times just watching and guarding the demon's sleep; occasionally – when Crowley seemed restless – letting his fingertips flutter over his face, forehead, temples, the good cheekbones, his eyes and his lips, warding the bad dreams off, soothing, consoling whatever troubles seemed to dwell on his demons' mind. 

And these days Crowley was worrying a hell of a lot, and he had absolutely nowhere to run to. Because the angel that'd always been within reach suddenly was not there anymore, and never would be. Suddenly, things had turned the other way around, and it was Aziraphale who demanded soothing so desperately; and it was Crowley who was obliged to give it. Which he had been doing, and doing outstandingly well, at that, but it was taking its toll on him, wasn't it? Everything had a price to pay, Aziraphale thought bitterly, and the price Crowley was paying was one too high. It wasn't just the dark circles or the trembling hands – he could probably selfishly (selfishly, dear someone, what was he turning into?) put it down to the lack of sleep. The demon had developed an almost human need for his nightly rest over the centuries he'd been practising it and by now he hadn't slept a single minute in months. No, there were worse things, which Aziraphale either hadn't noticed before tonight, or hadn't _wanted_ to notice.

There was despair in the demon's slit eyes, and the further they went, the more profound it seemed to grow. He hid it, and hid it well enough, and before Aziraphale had been apparently quite content letting it slip his notice, but not anymore. He couldn't say for sure what exactly had changed – had it been his recent realisation which he had yet to share with the demon, or maybe the fact of Crowley's absence these past one and a half hours while he hadn't been sure he'd ever see him again, but the outcome was pretty much the same. He could suddenly _see_, and what he saw frightened him almost as much as the possibility of Crowley being killed. He didn't know for certain if demons – or any other occult beings, for that matter – could go insane, but having spent six millennia side by side with creatures who definitely could, he shouldn't really be surprised if the possibility existed.

He recalled that ever-present despair clearly enough now. He could also recall the wrung tension in Crowley's body after the Dukes of Hell had left. The way every single muscle had been thrumming like a live wire. The way Crowley had given a start when he'd merely touched him. The way his eyes glinted feverishly as he'd kissed him before bolting into the night. The way Crowley looked around suspiciously every time they were outside. And no, Aziraphale didn't like the dark circles and the tremor in his hands either. All in all, it looked like Crowley had been fast approaching some mental breakdown, if it even was possible in demons, and if it wasn't, then he was surely approaching something worse. All the worrying and caring must have been too much for him, and no possible prospects of light at the end of the tunnel…

Aziraphale tried to imagine just how he was feeling, and found himself not quite able to. He'd Fallen once, but his Fall was softened by Crowley's constant presence beside him, to the extent, in fact, that it didn't really seem all that dreadful, at least not anymore. Crowley, on the other hand, might have had to live through it twice. The first time when he had Fallen himself, for real, and back then he'd been all alone with whatever he'd had to face. The second time while he'd been trying to help Aziraphale, living through Aziraphale's Fall, all the while seemingly getting nothing from the ex-angel in return.

Aziraphale winced. He had to do something, if not for his own sake, then certainly for Crowley's. He hadn't saved him only to force him into madness only a few months later, had he? No, he couldn't bear the thought of it. What, for god's sake, was he turning into, really?

Gently, he eased the hold of his arms around the demon and wriggled under the blanket so that he could face him. His hand cupped Crowley's cheek. The skin was still on the rather lukewarm side of warm, but not freezing anymore. That, at least, was good. 

"Where have you been?" he whispered, brushing the tangled strands of hair away from Crowley's brow.

The demon's eyes opened, two amber coals in the shadow underneath the duvet. The recent hysteria in them seemed to have subsided, thank the Lord for small mercies.

"Followed those two suckers," he murmured and breathed deeply, as if someone just resurfacing from a particularly nasty dream. His lips brushed over the heel of Aziraphale's palm. "Had to do a little slithering around in the gutters, you know, that kind of thing."

"It's freezing outside, Crowley…" Aziraphale muttered, more to himself than to the demon, and shook his head.

"Well, yeah, I noticed. But it turned out it was worth it."

"Did you know anything?"

"Yeah, not much but it's…" the demon huffed quietly, his eyebrows raising in wonder, "_strange_. I mean, their coming here six months too late instead of rushing right on the spot was already strange in itself. But it also seems they – the big guys from the Downstairs, I mean – weren't really intent on dragging you to Hell. From what I could make out the orders were to make you an offer and maybe intimidate you a little – and apparently drive me out of my mind along the way – but if you refused, they were to go back and leave you alone. Mentioned some sort of an agreement or something, too, but I have no idea what that can possibly mean. I didn't dare follow them all the way to Hell."

"What about you?" Aziraphale asked, taken aback. This news indeed seemed too good to be true. "Will they leave _you_ alone, too? Hastur didn't look particularly happy."

"Hastur can go bugger himself, it seems," Crowley grinned tiredly, looking quite bewildered, too. "Orders from the Boss himself. Seems like they've finally started to appreciate all I've done for them over the six millennia, or else I don't know what happened. Maybe they've just all gone barking mad both Up and Down."

Slowly, Aziraphale started to smile. His lips felt as if they didn't quite remember how to. The last time he'd done it – genuinely, that was – had been… well, quite a while ago.

"But that's just… just miraculous," he whispered, and then almost laughed out. The sound was quiet and just a tad on the hysterical side, but after all that had happened, he reckoned he did have the right to be a little hysterical. Crowley's slit yellow eyes watched him with an expression which was both slightly awed and unusually calm. "You really think they won't disobey?"  
"Believe me, angel, no one wants to disobey when the orders are given by Lucifer himself, and from what I understood, that's exactly how it was. Blessed if I know why, but…" he fell silent making an attempt at shrugging and then buried his face in Aziraphale's chest again, breathing in deeply and then letting the air out in the same fashion.

Aziraphale sighed, too, pressing his cheek to Crowley's wet hair and then miracling it dry with an afterthought.

"You know, about what I was going to talk to you about earlier…" he said softly, suddenly feeling way more certain about his assumptions with the piece of news Crowley had brought.

"Hmm?" Crowley hummed, changing his hold on Aziraphale's body to where his skin was warmer.

"I've been thinking… I've still got no clue as to why they wanted to kill you, but with all the rest… it looks like they did really leave us alone after the Apocalypse, didn't they? I mean, I did Fall because I suppose it had been pre-programmed to do so, the way this system of Felling angels works, but… it was certainly different from how you Fell millennia ago. Some things changed for me, I…" Aziraphale trailed off because it still hurt him, and he suspected it would forevermore, to be deprived of the God's Love and his constant presence in his heart. "I don't feel that connection with Him anymore, and love confessions don't go particularly well, but… those are really just technicalities."

He fell silent when he felt Crowley stir against him and then move back to give him a puzzled glance.

"Technicalities?" he echoed, one eyebrow raised.

"Yes," the ex-angel continued. "And they probably don't quite define me at all. I mean, I don't feel any urge whatsoever to wile around as I probably should, I didn't enjoy any of it back when we tried, there's no hatred I feel towards anyone. I'd still prefer to do good given a choice, and then I thought, maybe that's what it all is about, about choices. Free Will. I thought that maybe the two of us don't really have sides anymore, just like you said back after the Armageddon hadn't happened. I thought that maybe we could be on our own side so I could do whatever the hell I pleased, and that pretty much encompasses remaining myself, well, with just a few alterations, but still essentially myself."

Aziraphale sighed as he finished, watching Crowley's reaction. The demon he was holding in his arms looked utterly stricken, but it was obvious the emotion was of a positive quality.

"Well, that pretty much goes along with what I've heard from those two, doesn't it?" he muttered. "They don't really give a bless about us anymore, for whatever reason."

"It does," Aziraphale nodded. "The only thing I don't understand is why I didn't think of it earlier. All those months while we were travelling… maybe it wouldn't have had to be so hard for both of us. And, my dear?"

"Huh?" Crowley asked, looking somewhat mesmerised.

"Don't you ever think that I can leave you. Not after six thousand years, not when we finally have _this_."

The demon nodded, slowly.

"You look…" he paused, giving Aziraphale a somewhat heavy-lidded stare, and then continued, "different."

"Different?" Aziraphale echoed, raising an eyebrow. "How?"

Crowley shrugged, as if dismissing the matter. "Dunno. So utterly _not_ demonic. You'd make an awful--" he interrupted himself, and Aziraphale wondered if Crowley was thinking about the same thing he was.

"Do you think it was true?" he asked. "What Hastur said about me… you know, about stirring all that trouble?"

"He might have," the demon replied finally, cautiously, after a long pause. "Or he might not. It's not like I've never been able to do good – just don't bloody say anything about that spark of goodness again, please – or that being an angel, you weren't capable of being a bastard. You could probably make quite a decent demon with all the bastardness you possess, but… I think you're right, it's all about choices now. Besides, I did my best to remedy any damage done while you were at it, so…"  
  
Crowley fell silent, a little awkwardly, and Aziraphale smiled, incredulously, shook his head and clung closer to Crowley, nuzzling his face into the side of his neck. The demon's arms snaked their way around the ex-angel's waist. Yes, he did have the waist now, too. As well as taste, and lots of other things that came with the territory. But underneath it all, there might still be some room for the old Aziraphale left, he thought, and that did allow some hope for the future. Maybe he was not really bad even now, probably just a little bit more of a bastard.

As they fell silent, the sounds of the night rushed back in, the rustle of the branches outside, the wind whispering among the shingles on the roof, the old building occasionally letting out an odd creak. With a flick of his hand, Aziraphale made the lights go out, then kissed the tip of Crowley's nose and, with a sigh, stretched himself alongside the demon, who was out like a light in a matter of the few minutes that followed.

It had been a long day and Aziraphale was glad it was finally over. He rearranged the duvet around his softly snuffing demon, closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, too, remarkably at peace for the first time in the past six months.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *'We Real Cool' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds


	11. Chapter 11

_I don't believe in an interventionist God_   
_ But I know, darling, that you do_   
_ But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him_   
_ Not to intervene when it came to you_   
_ Not to touch a hair on your head_   
_ To leave you as you are_   
_ And if He felt He had to direct you_   
_ Then direct you into my arms.*©_

***************

The couple of days that followed the Dukes' of Hell unwelcome visit were spent in a subdued manner, both the demon and the former angel coming to the conclusion that, given the information they now had about Hellish plans, or rather the lack thereof in relation to the two of them, they could perhaps finally heave a breath and try to gently roll into their new domestic routine. Crowley mainly caught up on sleep, staying in bed for the most part of the day while Aziraphale challenged his cooking skills and explored all the perks of Crowley's state-of-the-art kitchenware the demon himself had rarely used over the years. He wasn't much of a chef, having had little practice, especially in those post-Apocalyptic years when they'd mostly gone out for breakfast or dinner to various establishments as an excuse to meet on a more regular basis, but after half a year of trying to exist the human way, Aziraphale was finding a certain liking for preparing food rather than miracling it up when needed.

Presently, a ring on the front door caught Crowley in the midst of arranging the cutlery on the kitchen table, startling him so badly that he dropped one of the forks. The demon blessed under his breath. The sharp clunk of the fork against the tiled floor of the kitchen took Aziraphale by surprise, too, making him give a start at the stove where he was administering finishing touches to the lasagne he'd cooked. He gave Crowley an apprehensive glance only to find the latter staring wide-eyed back into his empty living room, a mixture of fear and uncertainty in his amber eyes, something the ex-angel was starting to cherish the hope would finally abate. The previous couple of days, since the moment Crowley had returned home after spying on the Dukes of Hell, had seen him relatively relaxed now that there didn't seem to be any immediate danger. This unexpected ring on their door brought back the thrumming tension in the demon's body, though. In the blink of an eye, the plant mister from the coffee table in the living room materialized itself in Crowley's hand.

"For Sssomeone's ssake!" he hissed, gave Aziraphale a dismayed glance and headed off for the hall. "Now what?! Heaven's come with their own proposal or something?"

"Crowley?" The ex-angel followed at his heels, his cookery abandoned on the kitchen counter.

At the door, he stopped just behind the demon, Crowley's hand shooting to one side as if trying to somehow protect Aziraphale from whatever it was that was standing out there somewhere in the stairwell and ringing the doorbell for the second time now. Aziraphale didn't know what exactly he expected to see when Crowley opened the front door, directing the Sainsbury plant mister into the face of whoever was standing behind it, but it certainly wasn't a very good-looking young man dressed in casual dark blue jeans and a parka, holding what seemed to be a box of cake and looking very much as startled as Aziraphale himself was feeling.

"Er…" the young man said, his eyebrows raised in a partly surprised, partly flustered manner.

He gave the nozzle of the plant mister shoved almost right into his face an uneasy glance. He had piercing blue eyes and a shock of dark blond unruly wavy hair, carelessly swept off his brow, and he was much older and considerably more mature and masculine than what Aziraphale actually recalled, but, unmistakably, it couldn't be anyone but--

"Adam Young?" the ex-angel asked, almost breathlessly, his hand coming to rest on Crowley's outstretched arm and gently pushing it down as he addressed the Antichrist himself.

He couldn't know why on earth Adam was there in front of Crowley's front door, but even if he was a harbinger of bad news, Aziraphale still believed he wasn't a threat to them per se.

Adam's eyes darted momentarily to where his and Crowley's hands were joined, and then returned to look back at both of them with a slightly more confident smile.

"In the flesh," he nodded, still somewhat uncertainly eyeing the plant mister, which Crowley didn't seem to have any intention of lowering.

"Crowley, dear," Aziraphale addressed the demon, giving his hand a brief squeeze. "I do believe the Holy water would be of no use here."

Crowley gave him a fleeting glance but did lower his weapon of choice, if a bit reluctantly. Adam appeared to be reassured by the gesture, because his smile grew wider, even if still looking slightly abashed.

"I… well, I'm sorry for barging in on you two like this…" he scratched at his neck with his free hand and then shrugged. "But I thought it was probably high time I popped by and said hello."

"Said hello?" the demon echoed, his voice clipped and having a very far way to go to actually sounding anywhere near welcoming. "_Sssaid hello_, what, some twenty-two odd years past the not quite Apocalypse? Just what the hell's going on here?"

"Crowley, I think that's a bit rude to be--"

"No, that's actually all right, Aziraphale," Adam smiled, lifting up his free hand in a placating manner. "Crowley's right."

"Well, come in at least," the ex-angel offered but the Antichrist only shook his head with an apologetic smile.

"I would with pleasure but, first things first, I guess I have a bit of explaining to do, and then you'll decide whether you still want to have me here or not."

"Explaining my arse," Crowley muttered under his breath, but Aziraphale noticed with relief that the demon seemed to have relaxed a little.

"Please excuse my demon's lack of good manners," Aziraphale sighed, casting Crowley a somewhat stern yet affectionate look. "We've been through some tough times recently…"

Adam nodded in understanding, his smile looking somewhat sad. "I know that much, so it's all right."

"How do _you_ know that?" Crowley didn't exactly snap at him, but it was a close call.

"_Everyone_ knows, Crowley," Adam replied, patiently, not seemingly taking any offense at the demon's insolent manner. "I supposed you can't have known it but you two nearly became the reason for a confrontation between Heaven and Hell which was barely avoided in the end."

"_What_?!" this time both the demon and the ex-angel spoke in unison, totally taken aback.

"A _confrontation_?" Aziraphale asked.

"What do _we_ have to do with it all?" Crowley echoed him.

"Well, that's a bit of a long story," Adam raised his hands, both the free one and the one holding the cake box, defensively. "I did want to come by earlier, but you see, you fled London almost immediately, and stayed out of here for six months, and I wasn't even in England at the time and couldn't chase you all over the world afterwards, you know, family matters and all that, sort of deprives one of his freedom of movement," he shrugged with a smile. "So, first things first, I'd like to offer you my apologies for that, and tell you that both sides are actually sorry about what happened. Heaven is, genuinely so; Hell didn't give much of a damn in the beginning but once it became obvious it promised them lots of pain in the rear from their opposite number, they did feel sorry just as well."

"Wait, wait, wait," Crowley shook his head and the hand still clutching the plant mister. "You've lost me. Whatever either of those buggers would be sorry for?"

"Adam, do come in, please," Aziraphale offered. "You've lost me just as well, but I'm convinced that whatever it is you're talking about, it's not a matter to be discussed while standing at the doorframe. Besides, we were just about to have dinner, so you're more than welcome to join."

Crowley only huffed, unimpressed, but actually moved sideways to let the Antichrist in. He'd grown into an amiable man, Aziraphale remarked silently, looking very much like his father when the Morningstar had still been one of the Heaven's host. It was remarkable, really, just how strong the resemblance was. Crowley must have been thinking in the same lines, because he surprised the ex-angel the next time he spoke.

"How's the dad doing Down There?"

Adam gave him a surprised glance but replied nonetheless.

"Well, I can't say we have been getting in touch as often as a father and a son should, but for all I know, things are just on the right side of bad."

"Ever got told off for disobeying to destroy the world back then?"

"Nah, he sulked for way too long afterwards, and then it simply lost its point after a while. My parents here, though, _they_ did give me some hell. Now, they were livid!" Adam chuckled, toeing off his sneakers, and then stretched out his hand which was still holding the cake box. "And this, well… sort of a saying hello token, I guess. Pepper – you remember her, right? Red hair and awful temper, I'm married to her now, by the way – baked this for you."

Crowley didn't seem to be going to accept it, so it was up to Aziraphale to take the box from the boy's hands.

"Pepper?" he said. "Of course, we do remember her. Lovely girl. Strong opinion on things. Thank you very much."

"Who did you say you were visiting, huh?" Crowley huffed. "Childhood friends from the other planes of existence?"

"Of course, not," Adam rolled his eyes at the demon. "Said I was going to visit my two godfathers I haven't seen in ages, which, as far as I know, was almost perfectly honest. She said she thought she could recall the two of you, even though rather vaguely. I wasn't going to remind her at what circumstances exactly she actually got acquainted with you, though, so I settled for saying you came to my birthday party once, which wasn't much of a lie come to think of it."

The three of them spent a while doing that sort of small talk, chatting about little insignificant things while Aziraphale fussed in the kitchen dealing with the food. He was the one mainly trying to maintain the easy-going conversation since all the demon was doing was sit at the table and not quite glare at the Antichrist. Adam didn't seem to be put off by that at all, though.

"So what's it all about, Adam?" Crowley finally asked the moment the chit-chat seemed to have tapered off. "You obviously know what happened here six months ago, and from what I gather, you also know something we don't. Spill it, kid."

Aziraphale gave him a concerned glance from where he was busy putting servings of lasagne into plates, but if anything, the demon seemed to have relaxed a little more. The ex-angel was sure he was still anticipating something bad rather than good, but he had obviously noticed what Aziraphale had noticed himself – Adam appeared to be in a rather cheerful mood, so, all things considered, the news he had brought shouldn't be all that dreadful. That said, they were steal dealing with the Antichrist himself, so who could possibly be sure.

"Well, as I've said, the story is not exactly short and simple," Adam agreed, trifling with the string on the box he'd brought. "But I guess, first of all, I should say that…" he fell silent then and shook his head. "Boy, I don't even know where to begin."

"From the start," Crowley offered, scowling a little.

"Then, I reckon, that means from the end. Of the world, that is," Adam smirked, obviously quite pleased with his little joke. "All right, all right," he smiled a bit sheepishly, apparently having noticed Crowley's not at all impressed look. "You weren't notified about it personally, from what I know, but after you'd contributed to messing up the Apocalypse, it was agreed among the respective sides to leave you both alone and let you go on with whatever you wished to do here on earth. Hell decided you'd gone totally native, Crowley, which meant you were sort of in the land of no return for them anyway. Heaven was initially planning on recalling you, Aziraphale, but they decided to leave you alone as well, for as long as there was a representative of their adversary running free on Earth. So this was more or less how things stood for twenty-two years after the non-Apcalypse."

"Well, I guess we figured out as much ourselves," Aziraphale nodded.

"One would expect you would," Adam agreed. "Another thing I need to say is that that murder attempt," he looked at Crowley, his face now totally devoid of any merriment, "wasn't prepared by either Heaven or Hell. Well, Heaven had nothing to do with it at all, and as to your side, Crowley, it wasn't purposefully planned by anyone of great influence."

"You don't expect me to believe that guy had devised everything on his own, do you?" Crowley raised an eyebrow at the Antichrist. "He knew who he was dealing with."

"I didn't say that," Adam replied. "I said it wasn't plotted by any of the big figures from the Downstairs, but, Crowley, do you actually have any idea just how many folks in Hell envy you?"

"Envy… _what_?" Crowley sputtered. Aziraphale gave the Antichrist a puzzled look and decided to abandon the dishes on the kitchen isle, taking a seat at the table next to the demon instead.

"Yeah, and this is where the story gets somewhat complicated," Adam shrugged apologetically.

"Why in the world would anyone from Down Below envy _me_?"

"Can't you figure it out yourself, huh?" Adam asked, giving Crowley a pointed look and then shifting his eyes towards Aziraphale. "You've always prided yourself on being quick, for all I know."

"Oh," the ex-angel sighed, just a tad self-consciously, as his hand came to rest on Crowley's thigh, weightlessly.

"You mean…" Crowley trailed off nodding his head at Aziraphale next to him.

"Yeah," Adam responded with a mild smile. "You had it all, you know, starting with that story with the apple which gave you the image. You also had been sending rather good reports from Earth over the six millennia, you'd actually had the guts to rebel against Lucifer himself, and instead of being dragged to the pits of Hell to be punished for it, the big guys say you're to be left alone, on Earth, doing whatever you please. And on top of it all, of all the demons from Hell, you were the only one who… well…" Adam trailed off and once again glanced at Aziraphale, looking a tiny bit flustered. "You two have come out of the closet at last, right?"

"So what you're implying," Aziraphale said slowly, giving Adam's joke a miss, "is that someone in Hell found an accomplice on Earth to get back at Crowley for, apart from all the other things, loving and being loved?"

"That's some part of it, yes," Adam replied.

Aziraphale glanced at the demon who was sitting silently and looking both sick and bewildered.

"Well, wouldn't it be… I don't know, a crueller sort of revenge if they actually tried to kill me rather than Crowley?" the former angel felt the demon's gaze on him, full of utter horror. Aziraphale didn't dare look back.

"It probably would, but you see, being elaborate is not a skill which every demon in Hell possesses. Besides, they don't quite remember what true love is and what could hurt a person who loves more profoundly. The one which conspired with that human bloke was certainly not particularly good at the department of being _sophisticatedly_ bad."

"Oh dear," Aziraphale sighed. He felt Crowley's hand finding his, the one still resting on his thigh, and squeezing it almost painfully under the table.

"Well, yeah…" Adam agreed, his face looking sombre and somewhat sick, too. "And this is where all hell broke loose, pardon the pun, but I promise, it gets more interesting from here."

"Oh, really now?" Crowley practically hissed. "Do humour us, then."

His hand was still clamped on Aziraphale's, and the ex-angel rubbed his skin with the pad of his thumb, gently, hoping for a soothing effect. The demon was still apparently taking it all way too close to his heart.

"So you, Crowley, weren't killed as had been intended, and Aziraphale Fell, which hadn't been intended at all, but was still a sort of accomplishment, a consolation prize, if you will," Adam went on, obediently. "And you have no idea just what _sort_ of commotion this provoked."

"Well but… why? You said we were left alone; doesn't it mean either side didn't really care about what would become of us?"

"This is where you're wrong, Aziraphale," Adam said. "They did – and still do, actually – care, Heaven anyway. As far as Hell is concerned, they're just glad that Heaven got out of their hair."

"I still get none of it, kid," Crowley shook his head, frowning.

"The thing is, Heaven has known for quite some time what it is all about with the two of you, probably had known it before either of you actually figured it out."

"They… _what_?" Aziraphale gasped, feeling a bit dumbfounded.

"Yeah, they did know and didn't mind your hanging around a demon, and they didn't mind a demon hanging around you, either, because, you see, they knew what it was and why it was happening. And then, after the Apocalypse didn't take place, when the two of you were left to your own devices, you became a sort of… I'm not sure how to put it, to be honest. Heaven started seeing you and your love as a sort of experiment. As a sort of precedent, if you will. They actually had something resembling an agreement with the Downstairs… yes, Crowley, they did, there had always been some diplomacy involved in the communication between Heaven and Hell. So they made an agreement which required Hell not to interfere with the two of you."

"Were they stupid enough to actually _believe_ Hell would stick to its part of the promise, seriously?" Crowley inquired, incredulously.

"There are some things, even if very few, which both sides actually agree upon, and this was one of them," Adam smiled at the totally taken aback expression on the demon's face. "Anyway, as it turned out, Hell failed to fulfil their part of the agreement, which got the Archangels livid and, to be honest, it was a close call for the Apocalypse Take Two while the two of you were on the run, unaware of anything which was happening."

"Oh dear…" Aziraphale mouthed with lips that were almost numb.

"They settled on condition that the Downstairs would conduct a thorough investigation of the matter and find the demon who had plotted it all, which Hell did."

"What happened to him?" Crowley asked quietly.

"Obliterated," Adam replied, not looking particularly fascinated.

Crowley let out a shuddering breath.

"It's madness," he muttered.

"So what you're saying," Aziraphale said slowly, "is that we didn't really _have_ to run?"

"This is exactly what I'm saying," Adam confirmed. "No one actually was after you--"

"Why didn't anyone let us bloody know about it, huh, if they were all so goddamn concerned?" Crowley blurted out, angrily, and Aziraphale tightened the hold of his hand on the demon's thigh.

"Crowley…" he murmured softly.

"That's why I'm sorry I wasn't here in London and that I didn't manage to pay you a visit afterwards. That might have spared you quite a lot of trouble, for all I know…"

"Oh for someone's sake, I didn't mean _you_!" Crowley hissed. "Couldn't Heaven ssend someone to actually let uss know anything?!"

"And would you have listened, Crowley?" Adam asked mildly. "I mean, would whoever they sent even have had the chance to start explaining anything before you tried to kill them?"

Crowley was silent.

"They didn't want to provoke you and inflict even more damage than had already been done," Adam continued. "And then…" he trailed off into a slightly confused silence.

"Then what?" Crowley demanded.

"Well, you _are_ a sort of precedent. Since you were pretty safe, they decided to let you deal with it all on your own."

Crowley huffed, obviously not particularly impressed with the news. "Bassstards! So now what, are we some sort of bloody guinea pigs? Blasted test mice in Heaven's great laboratory? What's next they're going to put us through just to prove some of their blessed theories?"

"I don't think it works like that, Crowley," Adam said patiently. "It's all about free will and your own choices. They'd never interfered with the two of you before, and they weren't particularly keen on interfering in this case, either. You've come all this way to where you are now on your own, so…" he trailed off, now with a small smile stretching the corners of his mouth. "I'm here by my own choice, too, since I thought I owed you one for helping me save the world back in the day."

"This is madness," Crowley repeated again, stunned. Then he lifted his eyes to Adam and squinted. "Why did they let Aziraphale Fall in the first place? Couldn't they do bloody something about it? It wasn't… hell, he wasn't _meant_ to Fall!"

"I killed a human," the ex-angel said softly before Adam could reply. He didn't like the shape of the words in his own mouth, but well, he had to live with it now.

"Aziraphale's right. There are rules, and they're still valid," the Antichrist confirmed, sounding apologetic, Aziraphale thought, as if it was his fault that he couldn't change the rules.

"It's wasn't my place to decide whether anyone would live or die. I was stationed on Earth to help and sooth and thwart your plans, my dear, not to take lives."

Crowley shook his head, stubbornly, but didn't object.

"Can't they redeem him?" he asked after a while.

Adam smiled, sadly. "It is not my place to decide, either," he said. "But I guess you'll figure out how to deal with it all, now that you know how things stand."

"I am sure we will," Aziraphale nodded, remembering his conversation with Crowley about exercising free will and doing good rather than bad. He reached out to put his hand on one of Adam's and squeezed it briefly. "Thank you so much for coming here, Adam."

Adam grinned, evidently relieved. "Look, it's the least I could do. if anything, I owed you a favour for standing there with me twenty-two years ago."

"Now, how about finally having dinner? I'm afraid the lasagne's grown cold but that's easily remedied."

Aziraphale started to get up but Adam shook his head with a smile.

"Do not bother, I think I've exceeded the time limit allowed to me," he said apologetically and got up, too. "You know, Pepper's temper isn't getting any better with time, and she'll have my guts for garters for sodding away for the entire evening instead of staying to help her with Satan's own grandson, and I'm telling you, the kid's living up to the name."

"Oh…" Aziraphale said, somewhat bewildered.

Crowley actually chuckled at this. "So the old guy's a Grampa now? He must be losing his grip."

"Well, sort of," Adam grinned. "You're welcome anytime you feel like popping by and saying hello, and then we could catch up on stuff. Pepper would jump at the chance to have a while for herself while you'll help me with babysitting. I do know for a fact you have some experience with it after all that Apocalypse business."

"Just don't ask him perform magic tricks and we'll be all right," Crowley huffed.

"Now, that was utterly unnecessary, my dear," Aziraphale said, trying to sound stern but failing miserably.

"Unnecessary but true," Crowley conceded and patted his shoulder, getting up too.

They saw Adam to the door.

"Look, I'm… um…" Crowley sighed when Adam was about to leave.

"Yeah?" the Antichrist asked cheerfully.

"Oh blast it, you do know what I want to say. Isn't it the thought that counts?" Crowley grumbled.

"It might be, but I do love to keep my human appearance and refrain from using my powers on a daily basis. So you'll need to believe me I have no idea what exactly you're implying."

Crowley rolled his eyes, but smirked all the same. "Well, it's pointless to wait for mercy from the Spawn of Satan, I guess, so there you go, I'm really sorry I gave you a cold shoulder." He stretched out his hand, and Adam accepted it with a grin. "And thanks for the good news."

"Was a pleasure seeing you two after all this time," Adam replied and then, when he was about to step out onto the stair landing, he added, "And, Aziraphale?"

"Yes?" the ex-angel asked.

"What you think happened back in Peru is exactly what it was. Just a tiny bit of, well, divine intervention, if you will," Adam replied a bit conspiringly, turned away and walked down the stairs without saying another word.

Aziraphale wanted to ask the Antichrist what exactly he meant by that but he was way too dumbfounded to actually voice a single syllable. Because, deep inside, he did know what the boy meant. It was a realisation so stunning it left him staring after Adam with his mouth hanging open as he was simply unable to comprehend and accept the sheer entirety of it.

"Angel?" Crowley called, his voice strained with alarm, and this quality to it was what actually brought Aziraphale back into the real world. Of all things he wanted least of all was make the demon unnecessarily wound up all over again. "Aziraphale? What's wrong?"

Slowly, the ex-angel closed the front door and then looked at Crowley, his dazzling golden eyes fixed on his and radiating such amount of concern mixed with apprehension it almost hurt to look at them like that. With his lips still numb with astonishment, Aziraphale forced himself to smile and lifted his hand to stroke the demon's cheek with the tips of his fingers. _'You take care of him'_, that was what that lady had said, meaning, of course, Crowley. If it hadn't been for her – _Him_ – he might not have been able to comprehend the extent the problem had taken by then, Aziraphale thought with a shudder, once more recalling just how utterly drained the demon had been only a few days ago.

"Nothing's wrong, my dear," he replied quietly. "In fact, quite the opposite, I believe."

"Well, would you please elaborate a bit, huh?" the demon huffed, sounding a little exasperated but way less anxious. "I think I'm starting to get a bit sick of all the bloody mysteries and half-clues around. What was the Antichrist on about? What was that about Peru?" 

"Well, do you remember that British lady we met? The one who took a photo of us back on that hill?"

"Yes, what about her?"

"Well, that was _Him_, apparently," Aziraphale breathed, feeling somewhat light-headed. 

"Angel, she's a woman, what d'you mean--wait," Crowley interrupted himself. Aziraphale nodded and swallowed with difficulty. "What do you mean, him? _Him_? The…"

"The Big boss, yes."

Crowley's eyes widened, and Aziraphale thought he was currently witnessing the very same reaction Crowley must have seen on his own face only a couple of minutes ago.

"But… just…" the demon positively babbled even if he wouldn't be particularly pleased by such description. "How… why would _He_ have done that? Jes—_Someone_!"

Aziraphale shrugged. "Because we're _the_ experiment?" Aziraphale asked quietly. "Did you notice anything unusual back then? When she – He – spoke to us?"

"I… yeah, I probably did. When she shook my hand. Sort of… I don't know, a tingly sensation. I didn't particularly like it when she touched you, what with you blanching the way you did, and I thought for a moment she might be one of the Above or Below agents or something, but then she let go of you and…" Crowley frowned. "She told you something odd, didn't she?"

"To take care of you, actually," Aziraphale said quietly. "And I think it was the first time I'd realised what exactly this entire predicament was doing to you. What _I_ was doing to you. I just couldn't put two and two together and figure out who…" he shook his head, still stunned.

"So you're saying that…" Crowley huffed incredulously. "That… that _God himself_, blast it, actually took pains at… what? Finding us, making me all tingly, letting you know I was losing the grip on my own sanity? For whatever reason?"

"Well, you've heard Adam, they nearly started a confrontation with Hell on our account, didn't they?"

Crowley leaned against the front door heavily, pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, rubbing them harshly, and actually groaned.

"Angel," he grunted. "I'm sick of the world going mad, honestly. Can I wake up already, please?"

Aziraphale stepped closer, snaking his arm around the demon's waist gently, his palm sliding over the smooth cotton of his black shirt. He leaned in until his forehead was almost touching Crowley's.

"I know, my dear," he murmured, pulling Crowley a little closer. The latter let himself be hugged, relaxing into Aziraphale's touch. "But I do believe we're really going to be all right now."

"With Him, what? Watching over us? I'm not sure I'm very fond of the idea, it sounds way too close to prying for my liking. I'm a demon, for _God's_ sake, it makes me paranoid when I know someone's watching me and I can't bloody well do anything about it. I'm not supposed to be watched, by _Him_, of all people."

"Yet I believe he's been watching you all along, my dear," Aziraphale smiled, remembering just how many times Crowley had told him he was sure that the universe itself was taking care of him.

"You know what I want to do now?"

"What?" the ex-angel asked, still smiling, and let his hand run tenderly along the demon's side, up and down, up and down, soothingly.

Crowley remained silent for a while, and then huffed, just a tad flustered, "Sleep, just sleep, without a single worry in this blessed world."

"Just, please, Crowley, not for a century, all right?" Aziraphale couldn't help a grin and hid it against the demon's cheek. "We've got things to catch up on."

"No, of course, not. Just a couple of days would do." He felt the demon smile. "And then a breakfast in bed and a walk in St. James's and a dinner at the Ritz and a ride in the Bentley and I'll be good as new, I reckon."

"That's a deal, my love," Aziraphale murmured, noticing for the first time that saying it didn't hurt all that much anymore.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *'Into my Arms' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds


	12. Chapter 12

_The moon that lingered over London town_  
_ Poor puzzled moon he wore a frown_  
_ How could he know we two were so in love_  
_ The whole damned world seemed upside down.*©_

****************

It was dark in St James'. The sky which had been overcast the entire day now had turned into what looked like a dirtyish foggy mass. The city lights were so strong and so multiple all around the old park that, reflecting from the tiny droplets of mist in the air, they turned the sky over St James' into an apocalyptic scene of doom. The moon would have been somewhat more picturesque, but oh well, the moon wasn't what you could often witness living in London. Instead, the illumination of the Buckingham palace and the London Eye glared over the treetops, stark silhouettes against the background of the angry sky. The water in the lake was dark and still. The ducks were nowhere to be seen. Hadn't been, as a matter of fact, for the past six months. Citizens reckoned – quite reasonably – that they must have flown off to warmer places. They had all the right to think so – it was February, after all – but it wasn't the reason this time. The joy seemed to have gone out of St James', along with the two ever-present beings of supernatural origin, and so had the ducks. It couldn't be known if celestial bread tasted better than that of the secret agents that still frequented the park or whether the world without much messing around didn't feel just as right, the outcome was the same – the ducks were gone. No surveys had been conducted, but some also claimed that the number of visitors had dwindled over the past few months, and those who persisted to visit the park nonetheless tended to leave much sooner than they would have done before. The vendors were particularly affected as the profits they made had undergone a miserable plunge.

In the very heart of the park, however, for the first time in months, oblivious to all the troubles of the St James' visitors and its flora and fauna, two beings stood right in the middle of one of the bridges. Their shoulders touched, but barely so. They were looking at the still water of the lake, silently, an expression of brooding fixed on both their faces. One of them, the slightly shorter one, had a paper bag of oats in his hand; a rather useless thing considering the ducks weren't apparently feeling like having supper tonight. He was dressed in a sandy knee-length mohair coat, dark trousers and sensible dark brown Oxfords. There was a woollen scarf wrapped snugly around his neck. The ducks would be surprised to find out it didn't have a tartan pattern on it. In fact, nothing the man-shaped being was wearing had anything to do with tartan. His clothes looked rather plain but stylish, which would also have come as a surprise for the absent birds, and he seemed to have lost some weight, too. Which had left him looking controversially young and old. His face was looked younger, bordering on middle-aged but not quite, but his eyes – nothing to do with celestial blue either, the ducks would have noticed – were much, much more ancient. What had remained utterly unchanged, though, was the halo of unruly curls on his head and his delicate, immaculately manicured hands. 

One of which – the one that wasn't holding the paper bag, that was – reached out to his right and conscientiously took the hand of the other man-shaped being. This one was much easier to recognise, even though he wasn't wearing the customary sunglasses. They were safely tucked into the inner pocket of his coat. The coat was offensively black and doubtlessly tailor-made, most certainly in one of those small Italian towns which had those small Italian shops which specialised strictly in making men's suits that were worth a small fortune. He was a loyal customer, perhaps, _the_ loyal customer. Had, in fact, been for the past few hundreds of years. He was wearing black trousers with two immaculate creases and black snakeskin shoes. His jet-black hair had grown longer than the ducks had ever seen it and now was rather carelessly swept back. A few stray wavy strands fell onto his forehead, but they didn't spoil the whole image at all. Some would start to suspect they had been left there on purpose. He did look much wearier than he'd been in a long while, though – at least as far as the ducks could remember, which, frankly, wasn't very long – but his eyes were still slit and yellow, his nose straight and sharp and pointy and his cheekbones high and good. And as his fingers intertwined with those of the curly blond beside him, a smile touched his lips. It was the kind of smile only those who had hung around him long enough were allowed to see. That included the curly-haired man in the mohair coat and the ducks. The smile didn't let his teeth show and it made a pair of amiable dimples appear on his hollow cheeks. Everyone who'd ever had to deal with Anthony J. Crowley would be very much impressed by the fact that he was actually capable of smiling as it was, let alone smiling _this_ tenderly. The ducks wouldn't – they'd seen such a smile multiple times, especially over the span of the past twenty-two years as the two beings had acquired a habit of visiting St. James' practically on a daily basis. Aziraphale wasn't surprised by the gentle affection of the smile, either. Both he and the ducks knew well enough by now that it wasn't only about that spark of goodness, no. The point was that, deep inside, Anthony J. Crowley was a sentimental sop. 

"They'll come back, you think?" Crowley asked, his eyes fixed on the dark glassy surface of the lake. 

"I sure want to hope so," Aziraphale said slowly and gave the demon's hand a squeeze. "I can't see why they'd abandon St James' for long."

"Well, the nightingales did once, didn't they?"

They had, all right. And if it hadn't been for one a bit too wayward for his age boy from a small town that went by the name of Tadfield, they'd never have come back. Aziraphale wasn't sure that, had ducks decided to leave for good this time, that same boy would wish to do anything about it once more, amiable though he had seemed while visiting them the other day.

He sighed softly and squeezed Crowley's hand once more. It wasn't exactly freezing but surely on its way to becoming so, making the ex-angel wonder just what it had taken Crowley to survive London winters year after year after year. Now that Aziraphale thought of it, he had been the first to settle down here in England, the demon following him not long afterwards – well, a year or two later, but what was a couple of years for beings that were nigh on immortal? All of a sudden, he saw it in a slightly different light, now that he had the proof of why Crowley had persistently kept following him all over the globe. The demon had learnt to endure the weather he had hated with passion right from the start, and it had all been for his, Aziraphale's sake. One could probably argue that the demon must have had his own personal interests in it – ranging from keeping an eye on his opposite number to using Aziraphale as deliverance from his nightmares – but now Aziraphale knew better so that he could understand that it hadn't all come down only to that. The sudden realisation made his desire to apologise – which had been brewing in him relentlessly ever since the moment the divine intervention had happened in the mountains of Peru – even more urgent.

"My dear?"

"Mmm?" hummed the demon, absently, eyes still glazed over the deserted lake.

"I want you to know I am sorry."

Crowley's eyes snapped from the lake surface and locked with Aziraphale's, surprised. The former angel couldn't help a simultaneously embarrassed and somewhat sad little smile.

"I really think I owe you an apology."

"What for?" Crowley looked at him utterly lost. "Ducks?"

"_Ducks_?" Aziraphale echoed, and now it was his turn to be taken aback. He turned to face Crowley properly.

"Have you done something to them? Why would you want to apologise for any--"

"Oh my, no, of course not!" Aziraphale shook his head, smiling. When he spoke again, though, the smile had faded away from his lips completely. "No, I wanted to apologise because…" he shrugged uncertainly. "I'm sorry I've been making it so hard for you lately."

"Oh, for someone's sake, angel!" Crowley huffed, rolling his eyes. "I thought it was something serious. Like the ducks."

"No, please, Crowley, listen to me. I _am_ serious." Aziraphale lifted his other hand, realised he was still holding the paper bag, looked at it as if he was seeing it for the first time and then put it gingerly onto the bridge bannister. Then he took Crowley's other hand in his. "I'm sorry for all the worries I've caused since…" he sighed, wishing to somehow make it sound less severe, but he was certain it was high time he finally started to call things by their real names. "Since I Fell."

"Aziraphale," Crowley sighed, too, and shook his head ever so lightly. "Hadn't it been for you, I wouldn't be able to have any problems or worries at all right now. Don't you understand? I owe you, angel. Always will. You did save my life, remember?"

"You saved mine, too, more than once, didn't you?" Aziraphale said softly. He let Crowley's hands go and took a step closer. His palms came to rest on his coat-clad hips instead. "If anything, I owed you as much."

"Oh blast it, Aziraphale!" Crowley nearly hissed, rolling his eyes again. "If you're talking about that idiotic long-forgotten incident in New York, it had nothing to do with my courage or anything of that sort, it was my own sheer stupidity! You said as much back then, didn't you? I knew perfectly well I'd be back in a while even if that bastard discorporated me. That can't be called all that brave or anything! Don't you dare give me the credit for it."

"And what if I want to?" Aziraphale smiled. "It might have been a bit unnecessary, of course, since I'd have been back in a couple of weeks just as well even if you hadn't interfered and got yourself killed in my place. But it's the thought that counts, don't you think?"

The demon only let out a sigh, obviously intending to sound exasperated. He didn't quite manage. It came out rather shaky.

"Right, go on, do humiliate me further, why don't you?" he huffed with a scowl so miserably fake it made Aziraphale's smile grow just a bit wider. This pretence of being evil was apparently a part so deeply integrated into his very nature that the demon simply couldn't let it go even when he was perfectly well aware of the fact that Aziraphale knew him a bit better than that. "Just say you knew about that blasted spark of goodness you're always on about even back then."

"I'm sorry, my dear, but I think I've known it all along," Aziraphale smiled fondly. "On one level of consciousness or the other, even if I wasn't able to properly define it."

Crowley shook his head, but he was smirking, too.

"But don't get me side-tracked, please. There's something else I need to say. I had no right to treat you the way I did these past--"

"Angel--" Crowley interrupted him, this time really sounding exasperated, and beneath it, slightly panicked. 

"--and that I wish I'd understood it earlier. I'd have gone insane within a couple of days if you hadn't stayed around to literally baby-sit me, and, what's worse, I've nearly done that to you as well, haven't I? I'm sorry for leaving you to face it all alone, for making you live through it all over again. I don't know how it happened, Crowley. I don't know why I didn't manage to see it earlier, I don't know why I kept drifting away from you, wallowing in my own misery when--"

"Let's just say we're all even now and no one owes anything to anybody, huh?" Crowley pleaded, still smirking, but Aziraphale knew what it really implied.

Such kind of smirk usually served one single purpose, and that was concealing Crowley's true emotions. The genuine and embarrassingly sentimental ones, that was. And suddenly Aziraphale knew that he had been right. He'd been so horribly right it made a chill run down his spine. He hadn't even imagined how close to a… whatever it was that could have happened, a breakdown or pure insanity, Crowley had come to. This smirk of his looked desperate and more than a little terrified. 

"_Crowley_," the former angel murmured, stepping even closer – so close that it left their coat clad bodies touching – and hugged the demon, as securely as he could manage in his human form. Crowley's arms wrapped around his shoulders immediately, with no less intensity, his cool cheek flush against Aziraphale's warm one. "I just wanted to thank you, my dear. _My_ _dearest_. My love. Forgive me, all right?" Crowley shook his head desperately, but Aziraphale knew it didn't mean he didn't want to forgive him. What he meant was that he didn't think there was anything to forgive. But there was. He knew there was. "I promise you, you will never walk alone again, Crowley. Never."

The demon huffed, puffing a warm blast of air against Aziraphale's ear. It was tickling and more than rather pleasant, making the former angel shiver against the demon's slender body. When Crowley spoke again, his voice had a bit of a quiver in it.

"Just get in charge of things again, will you? I don't seem to be able to take responsibility very graciously. Not for long anyway."

Aziraphale inhaled sharply, lightly rocking them both back and forth. Just how bad had it been to actually make Crowley admit _that_ out loud?

"I will," he said. "It'll all be back to normal, my dear. You'll wile, I'll thwart, just occasionally; and I'll never let you go, Crowley."

"I love you, angel," Crowley muttered into his ear, his embrace tightening around Aziraphale for a heartbeat before easing into a gentler hold.

"I love you, too, my dearest."

It hurt, of course, predictably enough, but, Aziraphale noticed with a tad of surprise, that it didn't hurt as much as he'd expected it to. He dismissed it, putting it down to the fact that he must have probably started to get used to the atrocious thing, not allowing himself to hope for more.

"So you're really back to the old ways, pushing pedestrians out of my way and being annoyingly ineffable and all, huh?"

"As much as I can be," Aziraphale smiled against Crowley's cheek.

"Well, you know, I'm never going to miss the tartan bit anyway."  
  
They laughed a little and then remained like that for some time, huddling against each other in the darkness of St. James', under the sky which seemed to shine from the depths of itself. Aziraphale's heart still lacked the serenity and the divine presence, but it finally seemed he was ready to cope with both. He had Crowley, and that, he reckoned, counted for more. If things were reversed, and instead of having lost His love, he'd lost the demon – _his_ demon, his _beloved_ demon – Aziraphale doubted he'd have any strength left in him to cope with as much as mere existing. He was sure Crowley was worth Falling for, pardon the pun. Or maybe he'd simply spent too much time around humans.

"All right, so now, with all that apologising nonsense settled, how about me tempting you to some very late dinner at the Ritz?"

Crowley pulled back, leaving one arm still wrapped around the ex-angel's shoulders, and cocked an inquisitive eyebrow at him, the gesture looking painfully familiar and reminding Aziraphale awfully of the Crowley he hadn't seen in a long while, mischievous and playful and flirtatious and so awfully cock-sure, knowing that failure was something that he wasn't acquainted with.

"About time we did it all the proper way, huh? It's a good old-fashioned date, angel."

Aziraphale cocked his head just a tad, silently looking at the demon, taking in his features, feeling inexplicably, perhaps unforgivably blessed. And that was when something else dawned upon him, thanks to Crowley actually putting it into words. Good old-fashioned date was what they had never got a chance to go on, not really. They'd spent the past twenty-two years openly courting each other, that much was true, their intentions pretty transparent to anyone who'd seen them together, but they'd never ever been on a date as in a _date_, in suitable settings, two lovers sharing precious moments fully aware of each other's feelings. They'd been willing to take it slow for decades, and Aziraphale suddenly remembered thinking once that it most certainly wasn't only him who desperately needed that leisurely pace. Crowley, despite – or perhaps precisely because of – being a demon was in dire need of taking love one step at a time, too; and but for that incident six months prior, it might have taken them another couple of decades until they ended up where they actually were now, as proper lovers rather than just friends or soulmates or partners in crime. But they hadn't been given the chance to do that, and after that point, everything seemed to have just spiralled out of control, landing them in a situation where sharing the first kiss, sleeping in one bed and then actually sleeping with each other happened in the course of a few nights, which, compared to their previous pace had been way too quick. It had been good, great in fact, but only now was Aziraphale starting to wonder if, perhaps, they'd somehow smothered the precious romance in their relationship by jumping into it headfirst. And then he wondered whether that was one of the reasons of Crowley's recent mental state.

They couldn't go back to taking it slow again, Aziraphale mused staring at the familiar brilliant amber eyes, but they could at least make it all proper again, like lovers were supposed to, no matter if they were mortal or supernatural, angelic or demonic, or something entirely different.

"I'd absolutely love to, my dear," he finally said, and then added, with a soft smile, "Temptation accomplished."

Crowley grinned at him, those dimples in his cheeks and creases at the corners of his eyes making Aziraphale fall in love with him all over again. Then the demon laughed and lowered his head, shaking it a little.

"Kiss me, angel," he said when he looked up at Aziraphale again. "Right here."

"It'd be my pleasure," the ex-angel answered, now grinning at Crowley in kind, like a lovestruck fool that he was.

"I'd always thought it'd happen in St. James's, you know? The first kiss," the demon murmured as Aziraphale leaned in closer.

It was as if all those days and nights of oppressive despair had never existed, no messy, blood-tasting kisses in the dark; no desperate, tearful love-confession; no nightmare haunted dreams and the impending sense of loss and doom. Today seemed like the first day of their lives all over again, and Aziraphale was going to make sure it went right.

Gently, he pressed his warm hands to Crowley's cheeks, thumbs tracing the sharp cheekbones with a featherlight caress. His heart had picked up the pace and was fluttering in his chest as if this really was their first proper date, one which they hadn't been allowed to have.

"I love you, my dearest," Aziraphale said quietly, dissolving in the amber warmth of Crowley's eyes. "More than I could possibly have imagined, more than I can express. I'm blessed to have you, Crowley. You're my miracle and my blessing and my delight. I love you so much, my precious."

Crowley blinked, then swallowed, then his lips trembled and pressed into a thin line. His amber eyes were shining way too brightly in the dim electric lights of St. James'.

"I…" he started, but Aziraphale was already leaning in, leaning closer and there it was, a kiss which might well have been their first one, ever so hesitant and tender. It was only after their lips parted that he was able to finish what he'd begun to say, words leaving his mouth in a murmur. "…I can't even put it in words, angel."

Aziraphale laughed at that, softly, pressing tiny fluttering pecks to the tip of the demon's nose, and then his cheeks, and his eyes, and his temple.

"You don't have to," Aziraphale murmured, still smiling, hands cupping Crowley's cheeks. "I know. Let's go."

When they moved along the path, side by side, way too close to each other to be mere associates, Crowley draped his arm over the ex-angel's shoulders and leaned in to kiss the top of his head indulgently. Aziraphale, feeling utterly exhilarated, as if this really was their first ever date, one they had deserved to get half a year ago but hadn't, leaned in into the touch, briefly wrapping his own arms around the demon's middle. When he moved back to be able to walk properly and lifted his head, just a few dozens of metres away from them, there was a lady leisurely strolling towards them, a little dog on a leash trotting cheerfully by her side.

As they passed her, Aziraphale had a chance to catch a glimpse of her face, even the dim yellowish light from the street lamps enough to let him recognise her as the same lady they met atop of the hill back in Peru less than a week ago, the one who had taken their photo and told him to take care of Crowley. the one that, as Adam had claimed, wasn't a mere _lady_ but the _Lord_ _Himself_. He stared at her in astonishment, and she gave him and Crowley a calm friendly and somehow disturbingly omniscient smile, not a tinge of surprise on her face at encountering them here as well.

Aziraphale opened his mouth, not really knowing what on earth he was going to say, but the lady bet him to it.

"About time you two did it the good old-fashioned way," she said breezily as she went past them without a break in her stride.

Both Aziraphale and Crowley stopped in their tracks, looking back at her, but the woman slowly but steadily strolled on, her loyal mutt trotting beside her. The demon raised a quizzical eyebrow. Aziraphale shrugged, then returned his arm to its legitimate place around Crowley's waist and beckoned him to move on in the opposite direction. Even if either of them wanted to discuss the utter weirdness of it all, none did. It was just way too hard to put it in words, so they let it slip, pretending to forget about the entire situation altogether.  
  
In the depths of St. James' park, a gust of wind blew the paper bag full of oats off the railing and into the lake, scattering its contents over the water. Later in the morning the bag would be extracted from the lake by a caretaker, who'd mutter something rather unflattering about people who tended to litter in public places. The oats would remain to float around until their due time.

A few miles to the south of them, a flock of ducks were flying back home.

*****

At the Ritz, they were _miraculously_ lucky to find a table for two placed in a cosy little nook a little way away from the general commotion, unoccupied, one candle right in the middle of it lit up. As the waiter came to take their orders, Aziraphale nodded at the demon to give them first, his hand never leaving Crowley's, the pad of his thumb absently rubbing at Crowley's knuckles.

"And you, sir?" the waiter turned to Aziraphale once Crowley had voiced his choice of the evening meal, a ballotine of duck liver to start, and a lamb navarin.

Aziraphale, his chin resting on the heel of his palm, gave Crowley a questioning glance, one eyebrow raised ever so slightly in a silent question.

"Um…" the demon said to the waiter who switched his attention back to him. "That'd be my order and two sets of cutleries, if you'd be so kind, we'll share. Did I understand you correctly, angel?"

Across from him, Aziraphale felt his lips stretch into a perhaps way too silly smile but he didn't care. They deserved all the silly smiles in the world now, didn't they?

"Absolutely, my dear," he said, knowing they were somewhat flustering the poor waiter but unable to help it all the same – he was feeling so ridiculously in love with this marvellous, dazzling being sitting across from him he didn't mind if everyone around actually knew.

The rest of the evening went on smoothly, the two of them indeed sharing one meal from one plate, and subsequently a dessert which Crowley spoon-fed him with a smile plastered to his lips which was positively outshining the sparkling chandeliers around, and chatting about everything and nothing in particular. They stayed at the Ritz until its closing hours, and then, after the last customer apart from them left, Crowley, with a careless fling of his hand made Vera Lynn's _'A Nightingale Sang in the Berkeley Square'_ pour gently from the loudspeakers hidden somewhere in the interior of the restaurant.

"Fancy a dance, angel?" he asked, voice soft as velvet, and offered Aziraphale his hand, palm up.

Aziraphale just stared at him, momentarily lost for words, any words whatsoever, suddenly so full of love and affection and gratitude that all he could do was simply gaze back at his partner, adoringly, a smile starting to bloom on his face.

"Well, yes, why don't we?" he finally murmured, accepting Crowley's hand, now both wonderfully warm and steady.

They danced right in the middle of the restaurant, as the staff were cleaning up and closing for the night, slowly, cheek to cheek. They danced until the song ended, and no one really paid them any attention whatsoever, two lovers totally smitten with one another swirling ever so slowly in each other's arms in the midst of the gleaming marble and glimmering lights as the evening went on its supposed course.

They left the Ritz hand in hand, shoulder's touching as they walked towards the Bentley, which, Aziraphale could swear, was jubilant to be out and about again, and as Crowley drove them back to Mayfair, it played the notorious _'Good Old-fashioned Loverboy'_ ever so softly in the background. They didn't talk much on the way back, but Crowley's left hand never let go of Aziraphale's, both resting on the ex-angel's thigh, fingers entwined. Out of the blue, a memory resurfaced in Aziraphale's mind, that from six months ago, when Crowley had also held his hand whilst driving him to his place in Mayfair, the stark contrast between then and now making his breath hitch for a moment. Six months could never be considered as anything substantially long in the life of a supernatural being such as themselves, yet so much had changed in such a short, almost fleeting, timeframe. He could recall the pain, severe and acute, and the sucking emptiness, the sudden entirety of which nearly mad him blackout, and he had desperately wished he did, right then and there, so that he would not have to bear with having to withstand all that was to follow, and the sense of foreboding doom looming over them, no chance for a happy ending, not then, not for them, wondering what would be done to him once he had been dragged down to Hell, wondering if he'd forget it all, all the six thousand years he'd spent on Earth and the measureless time before that, wondering whether he'd be tortured, wondering whether he'd lose whatever goodness he had about him and be turned into a malicious creature, wondering how long he still had left to tell Crowley the most important thing he should have told him eons ago.

And then, suddenly, there had been arms wrapping around him, and he had perceived on some intrinsic level rather than had physically felt Crowley's presence, the spark flickering within him, one he'd always considered to be goodness and been eternally mistaken, it was good, but it was love, oh ,of course it was, Crowley's love enveloping him from head to toe and cushioning his Fall, absorbing the shock that coursed through his body and soul, saving him, saving him at that very first moment of it, and Aziraphale had clung to him back then, not only with his corporeal body but with his very soul, too, taking solace in the presence of the only being on this planet and both kingdoms Above and Below who he loved beyond all reason, faithfully and unconditionally, and even as he had wept in Crowley's arms, hand slick with blood and the connection with all that was divine being severed, he still had not regret what he'd done.

He never had regretted saving Crowley and Falling for him ever since. What he did regret was that, somehow, he had got trapped in self-pity, a feeling he'd never encountered whilst being an angel, and now without the divine light to guide him he had been simply unequipped to recognise and deal with it.

Yet here they were, despite everything, six months later, same car, same route, and them so different from who they had been, thanks to both divine and hellish intervention. Aziraphale fixed his somewhat absent gaze on their joint hands lying in his lap inconspicuously, slowly letting his eyes refocus on them, Crowley's fingers long and elegant, skin pale and so cool to the touch, and his, neat and perfectly manicured, much warmer than those of the demon. There was something in his throat then, constricting it and making each breath wheeze in and out past his lips with difficulty and making his sinuses burn as he looked at the dearest and gentles and kindest hands of the dearest and kindest and gentlest being he'd ever known. Slowly and reverently, Aziraphale lifted Crowley's hand to his mouth and pressed a long kiss to his knuckles, knowing there were tears streaming down his cheeks, dripping onto Crowley's skin, but he couldn't help it for the life of him.

"Angel?" Crowley's voice was so soft it felt like a physical caress, and a moment later the said hand brushed against his wet cheek as Aziraphale blinked furiously and sniffed through his half-stuffed nose, the demon's knuckles a weightless whisper over his damp skin.

"That's from joy, my dear," he said, voice still thick with tears.

It wasn't only from joy, of course, there was loss, and regret, and pain, and the sense that they shouldn't really have wasted so much time, but then again, Crowley, who just seemed to have relaxed a little after the Antichrist's visit the other day and was turning into his old self, didn't have to hear about it now, and besides, maybe it was all ineffable anyway. The demon smiled at him then, a small smile barely there but it was all Aziraphale had to see or know. He felt Crowley's hand relocate to his shoulder, give it a squeeze, and then lower back into his lap to find Aziraphale's. They went on in the same manner until they reached Crowley's flat.

*****

There in the darkness of the demon's bedroom, thick but not really menacing anymore, rather comforting and secure, Aziraphale resolved to keep making it the proper way. They had indeed crossed this last line a while ago, bodies and souls demanding any kind of consolation they could glean, but Aziraphale was still determined to make this night feel as if it was truly the very first night they had ever spent together, the first night of the rest of their lives.

In the middle of the dark bedroom, bare feet on the soft white carpet which lay in front of the bed, with his lips pressing little languid kisses to Crowley's mouth, Aziraphale undid the buttons of his shirt, one by one, slowly revealing the demon's narrow chest and flat stomach and subsequently letting the garment whisper down his shoulders and arms and pool on the floor around his feet. If Crowley's hushed gasp was any indication, this was the proper thing to do. With a smile, Aziraphale let his mouth relocate lower, trail along the sharp jawbone and end up on the side of Crowley's neck, sucking and licking and kissing his way to his collarbone whilst his fingers got themselves busy with unhurriedly dealing with the button on Crowley's trousers. Unbuttoned and unzipped, the garment slid down Crowley's slim hips along with his underwear, leaving him stark naked before Aziraphale.

The latter took half a step backwards, hands resting on Crowley's waist, and let his eyes roam over the expanse of the demon's body, slender and graceful, temptation incarnate with those long limbs of his, ribs and hips protruding beneath his pale skin, abdomen flat and heaving, chest visibly reverberating from his heartbeat, and yet so awfully vulnerable in all his delicate beauty and with that smile on his lips, somehow fragile in its sincerity, desire that was his innate trait compromised by love so profound it was almost painful to feel the entirety of it.

"You're so beautiful," Aziraphale murmured, stunned by Crowley and everything that he was.

The demon's eyes left his for a fleeting moment, dropping down to the region of his chest, dark eyelashes fanned against his hollow cheeks, and as he blinked, Aziraphale's clothes were sent elsewhere, leaving him naked and yearning before Crowley's open gaze.

"Seems a bit fairer this way," the demon said, voice soft and shaking just ever so slightly, eyes, warm and shining, meeting Aziraphale's.

Aziraphale closed the distance between them then, that insignificant half a step separating them, and then they were finally flush against each other, skin on skin, drawn to the other one as if by some irresistible gravitational force none of them had ever been able to really resist, arms wrapping and squeezing and holding the other one close, hands reverently administering caresses the tenderness of which could only be familiar to humans themselves, ones who were ruled by their nature and emotions in the first place.

In the cozy darkness filled with hot hushed breaths and breathless gasps and quivering pleas, their scents mixing, bitter and sharp and leathery one of Crowley, warm and light and snunny of Aziraphale, complemented by the smell of intimacy, sweat and musk and sun-kissed skin, Aziraphale did what he should have done long ago – he loved Crowley, long and hard and thoroughly, dragging the sweet delirium for as long as only supernatural beings could really withstand, stealing his demon's gasps and moans and unintelligible strings of syllables which were perhaps meant to be words, but Aziraphale didn't need to hear him say anything when there he was, the glorious, dazzling, kindest, most devoted being he'd ever known, right in front of him, eyes wide open and shining with so much love, their colour brought out by tears standing in them, brow feverishly glistening with a thin sheen of perspiration, lips, sensual and chaffed, parted revealing a glimpse of teeth too sharp for an ordinary human, dark hair splayed over the pristine white of the pillow beneath his head, cheeks wet with the worth of tears unshed for the past six months of their way too long ordeal, right there, holding on to Aziraphale, arms around his neck, legs wrapped around his hips, so alive and longing, so desperate, so loving.

He kept it going for as long as he could muster, slowly and methodically making his demon forget about everything which had taken place, about all the pain and fears and sorrows of the past six months as well as of those accumulated over their millennia-long acquaintance, loving him until there was nothing shining in Crowley's serpentine eyes but love and joy, something he deserved to have got oh so long ago. When Aziraphale collapsed on top of him, an undefinable period of time later, spent and sweaty and totally exhausted but feeling exquisitely blissful, feeling absolutely, unconditionally at home, he kissed those tears streaming down Crowley's cheeks away, soothing his ragged gasps which were threatening to turn into sobs, whispering hushed words of love totally oblivious to the sting they caused, or maybe they didn't, maybe not anymore. His wings were out, sheltering them both under their warm canopy, and he wasn't sure if he was taken aback to see that they were still as brilliant white as they had been when he'd steel been an angel.

"My love, my dearest, my precious," Aziraphale murmured, seasoning each endearment with a kiss to Crowley's moist cheeks and eyes which were still closed, and chafed lips which were parted, one hand in his hair, loosely holding those silken strands, the other cupping the side of his beloved's face.

"That's from joy," Crowley whispered, voice trembling and hoarse with tears, but sounding perfectly genuine all the same, and then his eyes finally slipped open and within a heartbeat they were staring past Aziraphale, the look in them utterly dumbfounded. "They're white, angel. Your wings."

His tone was half-awed, half-questioning, as if he didn't quite dare believe his eyes as well as didn't dare jump to any conclusions.

Aziraphale only shrugged, as well as his position of being wrapped around Crowley and having Crowley all but wrapped around him could allow him to.

"I'm not one of the Divine," he shook his head, for the first time not really feeling any dread or sorrow of realising it, though.

"But you're certainly not one of the Damned, either," Crowley muttered, "not with…"

He fell silent, shifting his stunned gaze between Aziraphale's eyes and his wings.

"Maybe you aren't, either," the ex-angel said softly. "And you shouldn't be, not anymore. Maybe we're really on our own side now…"

"Two of a kind, huh?" Crowley murmured, still sounding utterly astounded, but there was something in his eyes, incipient flicker of true hope Aziraphale wasn't sure he had ever seen in them in all the six millennia he'd known the demon. And then his eyes truly lit up, only the beginnings of a smile on his lips. "I love you, angel," he said, waited a heartbeat and then grinned, it being so bright it lit up his whole face. There was no blood on his lips, not a single trace of it.

Aziraphale laughed quietly, and then there were Crowley's hands on his cheeks as the demon pulled him down to his positively grinning mouth. Through a breach in the clouds, the old puzzled moon shone its silvery light on them, bathing the two lovers in it.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square' by Eric Maschwitz / Manning Sherwin


	13. Chapter 13

_God send the only true friend I call mine_  
_ Pretend that I'll make amends the next time_  
_ Befriend the glorious end of the line_

_And I thank you for bringing me here_  
_ For showing me home.*(c)_

_Epilogue_

*****

"Why did you stop, angel?"

Crowley's amused voice pulled Aziraphale out of his reverie and back into the softly lit living-room of Crowley's Mayfair flat. He blinked, trying to dispel the remains of the daydream that had come over him, put the book aside and glanced down at the demon. The latter was stretched on the white leather sofa, his bare feet hanging off one of its armrests, his head resting comfortably in Aziraphale's lap. The slit eyes were looking up at him curiously, the electric lights turning the daytime yellow into molten gold, a sight which had Aziraphale totally captivated since the dawn of times. Slowly – as if he was still caught in a phantasy – he let his fingers bury themselves into the demon's hair, caressing the stray strands off his forehead. The amber eyes closed for a moment, languidly, then opened again. The look in them was affectionate and nothing if not serene, something which wasn't particularly characteristic of Crowley, especially considering their recent predicament.

"I've been thinking…" Aziraphale said at last, unable to help a smile as the demon's eyelids fluttered closed once again. He should have chosen a cat's form, not a snake's, he remarked absently, stroking his hair.

Crowley snorted, that familiar, carefree sound which had the ability to instil the ex-angel with the confidence that everything was running just the way it ought to.

"You practically took me by surprise; Aziraphale thinking, who could have thought?" Crowley's eyebrows arched just a little. "What about, angel? You stopped at the most interesting place, I thought you were just building up some suspense, but apparently no such luck, huh?"

"Now, you don't need to get all sarcastic, my dear. I was thinking that we could probably get ourselves a… well, a home."

"A _home_?" Crowley's eyebrows became even more perfectly arched. "You mean like moving in together?"

"That's precisely what I mean," Aziraphale nodded.

"But we've already… you know, kind of shacked up together, if you haven't noticed."

Crowley twirled a finger around the living-room, apparently to emphasise his point.

"Yes, but--"

"--because I thought that when people have spent virtually a whole year living side by side, it means that they've already moved in, huh? Correct me if I'm wrong."

"Yes--"

"And," Crowley's slender finger pointed up at him decisively, ending up almost touching the tip of Aziraphale's nose, so much so that the latter almost had to cross his eyes to look at it. He pushed it away with his nose instead, unable to help a chuckle. "We have also been sleeping together, dining out together, cooking each other breakfast and I've been hauling you back and forth between here and your dusty bookshop and various absolutely horrid book fairs, and if that doesn't mean home, I--"

"Crowley, will you please stop ranting?" Aziraphale asked, smiling down at the demon fondly. 

"I'm not ranting," Crowley huffed, but smirked too, "I'm just pointing out that--"

"Yes, I know what you're pointing out," Aziraphale rolled his eyes, "the obvious. I know we have been living together--"

"Good. Reassuring, anyway. Glad you've noticed."

"--what I meant was, what do you think of moving to some other place? A… well, I don't really know…"

Aziraphale trailed off and shrugged, looking around himself. Crowley's flat had all the cutting-edge amenities they could possibly need to make a comfortable living, but… he just didn't quite know how to put it in words not to offend the demon by accident.

"You don't really like it here, do you?" Crowley asked quietly.

Aziraphale looked down at him, desperately grasping for milder words. Judging by the expression of the demon's face, though, he wasn't going to become offended any time soon. His wonderfully golden eyes were still smiling, now complemented by an amused glow in them, so the ex-angel thought telling the truth was his only option.

"No, I'm afraid I don't," he said quietly. "I mean, the place is modern, of course, and it's functional and spacious and light and--"

"--and you still don't like any of it," Crowley finished with a small, bemused smirk.

Aziraphale shook his head. "I'm sorry, my dear."

"Save your sorry's, angel," Crowley huffed. "I'm not sure I'm all that fond of it myself. Definitely not after what happened to Ligur here on my very carpet, and never mind that the Antichrist remedied it all afterwards. What do you have in mind, eh? You do have something, don't you?"

"Well, I thought we could possibly find something near the bookshop. At a walking distance, perhaps. You know, so that you wouldn't have to give me a lift every time I needed to be there. Or maybe--"

"Or maybe your bookshop, huh?" Crowley squinted up at him, suspiciously.

"Well, I didn't put it exactly like that--"

"Oh, he didn't put it like that!" Crowley echoed, rolling his eyes for good measure. "Who are you kidding, angel? You're still rubbish at the lying department. Lying to me, at the very least. I can see right through you, you must have already made a sodding plan of moving in there, huh?"

"I haven't made any plans about anything yet, Crowley," Aziraphale smiled. "Can't make them without you now, can I? But I really did think about the bookshop as--"

"Not for the life of me, angel! You've got dust and cobwebs all over the place, I can't live in such environment, for someone's sake!"

"Don't be silly, you know perfectly well there's no dust anymore, let alone cobwebs."

There indeed wasn't. Aziraphale had somehow grown rather averse to messy and untidy surroundings, preferring the bookshop to be light, too. This left his less than hospitable scowl and absolutely sporadic working hours as the only possible means of shooing unwanted customers away.

"Well, even if there isn't, your shop isn't designed for a normal daily life of decent peop-- beings."

"We can always do some renovation. Scrub and paint and polish the entire back area, refurbish the rooms and get some modern kitchen equipment. We could bring some of it from here, actually."

"Be a realist, angel, please."

"I am being a realist. There's also an attic, did you know? Would make a good bedroom."

"I'm afraid to even start to think of just how much mice dung is stored up there. You'll need to call a disinfection brigade first to make it even remotely habitable."

"Well, I can't see why we couldn't call them, and then start making the entire place liveable."

"Who's gonna do all the redecoration thing, huh?" Crowley inquired.

"Why, us, my dear," Aziraphale shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I've always known you were crazy."

The demon rolled his eyes, feigning exasperation brilliantly. The former angel was still not buying any of it, though.

"I've always known I could tempt you to doing something good."

"No, I'm sorry, angel, but tempting is still my job. And okay, admittedly, I do see a point in moving to some other place, but that place doesn't include your bookshop."

They fell silent for a while.

"Well, you know, these past few weeks there have been a number of exceptionally eager visitors. I am afraid they weren't quite interested in my books," Aziraphale said evenly, eyes fixed on Crowley's makeshift garden, which was lush and blooming with twice as much vigour now that, along with the demon's terror reign, they also got to bask in Aziraphale's occasional affection.

"Huh?"

Crowley's eyes snapped back to his. Aziraphale tried not to spoil everything by an idiotic grin that threatened to appear on his face.

"There is one particularly enthusiastic lady."

Crowley's brow creased.

"She's been coming almost every day this past week or so."

"Persuading you to sell her some of your first editions?" Crowley asked, sounding ridiculously hopeful.

"Not exactly."

"Then doing what, exactly?"

"She's been a widow for a decade, I think. Never remarried. Must be feeling lonely, the poor dear."

"Can't you just scare her off, eh? You're professional at it, angel. Have always known how to be a proper bastard."

"I would if only she was there for my books. But she's coming for company and I don't have quite the heart to deprive her of it."

"So what you're saying is that she's interested in you. In you, I mean, as in a _man_, huh?" Crowley asked, sounding endearingly distressed.

"Looks like that," Aziraphale nodded, biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from grinning.

"Huh," Crowley said, somewhat anxiously.

"And there's been another gentleman, too--"

"Oh for someone's sake!" the demon huffed incredulously, looking positively scandalised. "Now what, you've given up on that dreadful tartan of yours and turned into a nice bait for various middle-aged humans who want themselves a bit of a good-looking bookseller?!"

"Why, I didn't say they were middle-aged…"

"Are they pleasant on the eye, too, by any chance? Nice to have a conversation with? Surely have a personal vehicle to give a certain bookseller a lift to his bookshop every morning and take him back home every evening?"

Aziraphale couldn't help it – his smile stretched the corners of his mouth in spite of his attempts to keep a straight face. A jealous Crowley was a sight for a sore eye.

"Well, anyway, what I was saying is that there are a few people who--"

"Who have been hitting on you," Crowley finished lamely. "I got it, thanks."

"Well, if you want to put it that way. Anyway, I thought that, well, you know, seeing you strolling into the shop dressed in one of your silk robes with a cup of coffee in hand, bedroom eyes and bedroom hair and all that, might--"

"Might give them the idea."

"Yes."

"Angel," Crowley sighed, the sound full of suffering, and raised his eyes to the ceiling theatrically. 

"What, my dear?" Aziraphale asked, nonplussed. 

"You do realise that it's not even defined as tempting, huh?"

"And what is it, according to you?"

"It's outright blackmail!" Crowley retorted.

"Is it? I thought I was just asking for help the only being I can really rely on, and who--"

"All right, all right!" Crowley raised his hands in the air. "I give up! I'm not going to let some humans ogle and flirt with _my_ angel. Even if it's gonna cost me a hell of a cleaning first," he muttered under his breath.

"You'll see, we'll make it just splendid," Aziraphale grinned and ruffled the demon's already messy hair. "I promise you."

"Yeah, yeah, I have no doubt about that," Crowley sighed, pretentiously. "And what am I going to do stuck in your bookshop for days on end? You'll have your books, at least, but have you thought about me, huh?"

"You know, there's a site on sale, just next to the bookshop--"

"That's an adult store, Aziraphale, and it's not on sale from what I can remember."

"On the other side, Crowley."

"Oh, is it, now?"

"Yep."

"What a fortunate coincidence. What have you done to the owners to make them want to sell it, huh?"

"I haven't done anything. Honestly. They're selling it by their own will."

"I don't believe you but, okay, let's say I do--"

"Of course, you do."

"--of course, I do," Crowley rolled his eyes, somehow still looking affectionate. "It's on sale, so what of it?"

"Well, I suggest we buy it and turn it into… well, a flower shop, perhaps?"

Crowley stared up at him. Aziraphale raised a quizzical eyebrow. Crowley stared at him some more. Then blinked. Then let out a slightly hysterical little giggle.

"A flower… _what_? Are you kidding me, angel? One salesman in the family is more than enough, if you ask me."

"How about a floral designer… or something in those lines?" the former angel beamed down at him.

"Aziraphale… Angel..." Crowley shut his eyes tight and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Drama had always been something Crowley was very accomplished at, Aziraphale mused, fondly.

"We could redecorate it, too, and turn it into a kind of floral studio?" he offered.

"Angel, angel, angel, stop," Crowley moaned. "Please."

"And the building is adjacent to mine, so we could actually connect them."

"Aziraphale," Crowley sounded positively – and now very genuinely – appalled. "Have mercy. I'm begging you."

"But that sounds splendid, doesn't it?" Aziraphale smiled down at Crowley's very expressive double-face-palm.

"Mmmmmph," said Crowley from behind his hands.

"I knew you'd like the idea."

Crowley rolled onto his side and buried his face, still covered by his hands, into Aziraphale's soft stomach, muttering something against the fabric of his plain white t-shirt.

"Do you think we could start moving soon?" Aziraphale asked, stroking the demon's dishevelled head gently. 

He didn't really need Crowley's confirmation to know that, despite all the mock drama involved, the demon didn't really mind. Of course, putting up some fight – just for the hell of it, really – was his nature, and despite the numerous _'I love you's_ he'd said and the most tender of caresses he could administer, he remained what he was – Crowley, one very mischievous and very ambitious demon – so he couldn't just nod and accept it with a smile. But he'd asked Aziraphale to be in charge himself, so this was what Aziraphale was trying to do, and after a while Crowley's hands left his face and found their way to Aziraphale's back as he hugged him across his middle.

"Yes, I think we could," he finally mumbled against the former angel's stomach. Aziraphale stroked his hair and his shoulders some more, closed his eyes and smiled contentedly.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Home' by Depeche Mode

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry to kick off by making everyone hurt and miserable, but I can promise it'll get even more miserable in the course of the story and will gradually work up to being more cheerful. Because there's no place for sad endings in my universe.
> 
> This thing was started a while back, perhaps as early as 2016 or something of that sort, and was subsequently forgotten and left to gather dust on my hard drive, and then, against all odds, it somehow sneezed back to life drawing my Muse's attention to itself XD
> 
> I've read some absolutely astounding Good Omens works here, so elaborately planned and written, so I don't claim this one has an ounce of the genius of those stories, but I do hope it's readable enough. I couldn't just keep the thing on my computer anyway, so do enjoy if you dare XD
> 
> The initial quote is from Depeche Mode's song 'The Love Thieves', which actually gave the title to this fic, because when I first read the book, five years ago or so, I couldn't get rid of the image of Aziraphale who looked precisely like Maestro Gore in their Playing the Angel era, and it all went downhill from there (even though I do find Michael Sheen absolutely brilliant, too) XD Sorry not sorry.
> 
> Once again, I apologise for any quirky language - English is not my mother tongue even though I've done my best to whip it into behaviour.
> 
> (Ugh, that's been a rant. 'nuff said, time for me to shut up)


End file.
